Before: 270 lbs.
After: 145 lbs.
Program Used: Jenny Craig

When Lisa Taylor, a stay-at-home mom from Payson, Utah, gained 50 lbs. during her first pregnancy, she turned to the drug fen-phen to take off the baby weight. What she didn’t know then was that fen-phen — since taken off the market — is dangerous. “It hit the market when Raquel was born in 1996,” says Lisa, now 35. “I’m 5-foot-6 and was well over 200 lbs., so I felt like I had to try it.”

Although she dropped 20 lbs., the pills made her feel horrible. “My head was so clouded that I couldn’t think,” she says. “And my heart would constantly race — I’d feel it thudding.” She went to see her doctor, who told her she had developed a heart murmur, possibly because of the pills.

“I was petrified that my life was going to be cut short and that Raquel wasn’t going to grow up with a mom,” she remembers. “All I could do was beat myself up over it.” Her husband, Scott, a police officer, didn’t blame his wife, but he did worry about her. “Lisa’s father had heart problems due to his weight, and he passed away in 1994,” says Scott, now 36. “I didn’t want to lose my wife, too.” She stopped using fen-phen, but her heart murmur remained, and over the next three years her weight climbed to 240 lbs.

Getting pregnant again, in 1999, didn’t help her weight woes. “When I was in the delivery room, the nurse announced that I weighed 270 lbs.,” she recalls. “I was thinking, My husband is right here! Now he knows that I weigh more than most football players!” That wasn’t the end of her humiliation. “A few weeks later, when I was nursing Alyssa, the bed broke,” Lisa confesses. “I felt horrible. I was so embarrassed to tell Scott, but he was good about it. He just fixed the post and added some support.”

If Not Now, When?

Over the next few years, Lisa became increasingly anxious to slim down. “I felt helpless because I wanted to exercise, but it was hard to find time,” she says. Even after what happened with fen-phen, she experimented with diet pills — but, she says, “nothing made me feel healthy or helped me lose much weight.” Finally, one morning in January 2004, Lisa had a moment of clarity.

While flipping through the paper, she came across an ad for a gym that read “If not now, when?” Suddenly, it clicked. “I finally realized that I needed help to lose weight,” says Lisa. “I had always wanted to call Jenny Craig because I liked the idea of one-on-one counseling, but I felt like I was so large that I needed to lose weight before I could join. But then it hit me: If I don’t call Jenny Craig now, then I’m never going to get the help I need!”

Lisa called that day. A counselor named Angie put her at ease by confiding that she, too, had struggled with her weight. “That made this program work for me,” says Lisa. “She knew how hard it was to lose because she had been through the experience.” Angie also helped Lisa problem-solve. “I wanted to lighten up my cooking,” says Lisa, “so Angie would find low-fat recipes and suggest easy substitutions for baking, like swapping applesauce for butter.” And Lisa loved that, with Jenny Craig, her meals were preplanned, making it feel foolproof.

And, in fact, it was: Slowly, a few pounds at a time, the weight dropped off. After 11 months on the program, “a few pounds a week” added up to a whopping 95 lbs. lost. She was ready to go it alone. “I was so scared I’d gain it back,” she says, “but I wasn’t giving myself enough credit.”

Marathon Mom

A surprise bonus: Lisa’s healthy new lifestyle has rubbed off on her daughters. “It is making me a better mom. Instead of sitting around the house, the girls and I go to the park or we’ll go hiking, ” she says. “I’m happy to see that the girls are eating more vegetables, too — Alyssa cheers when I cook carrots.” Slimming down has eased one stress from her “before” days: “It may sound silly,” says Lisa, “but before, I was worried that my girls would feel embarrassed if I came to school. Now they can feel proud.”

Raquel and Alyssa can also take pride in their mom’s athletic achievements. “I used to hate running because it was hard,” says Lisa. “But once the weight started coming off, I tried again, and as I built up my endurance, it became easier and easier.” To make time for her runs, Lisa gets up each morning at 5 a.m. and exercises while the girls sleep, before Scott leaves for work. Last summer, when Lisa had worked up to running 15 miles, Angie encouraged her to sign up for a half marathon. “I was nervous, but come race day, I was so elated,” Lisa recalls. “The whole time I was running, all I could think was, ‘Holy cow, Lisa, you’re really doing it!’”

Crossing the finish line and seeing her family cheering made the personal victory even sweeter: “The girls had roses, Scott was holding a lovely bouquet and they had the biggest smiles on their faces,” she says. “The first thing out of Raquel’s mouth was, ‘I want to run a 5K!’ I can’t describe the feeling of accomplishment that gave me. When I was heavy, I couldn’t even imagine running a half mile — let alone a half marathon — and now I’m inspiring my daughter to be healthy and active like me!”

But the best news of all: Thanks to better nutrition and fitness, Lisa’s heart murmur is history. “When I went in for a physical last March, the doctor couldn’t hear it anymore. It was horrible thinking that I might leave my family behind, so this is a huge relief. I’ve come so far and I feel amazing — I’m never going to let that go.”