I actually met Whitney Houston for the first time at a charity event in October 2006. It was one of the first times in my life that I can honestly say I was starstruck. I was scheduled to sing during the event and was sitting in a hallway inside the Beverly Hilton hotel, where the fund-raiser was taking place. I was waiting to go into the ballroom to perform. My publicist and choreographer were sitting with me when I noticed a herd of men rushing down the hallway looking like secret service. They were surrounding a woman and walking very fast. When I looked up, I realized it was Whitney. As she passed by us, she held up her index finger and said, “Stop.”
Her entourage stopped cold in their tracks.
Whitney walked over to me and stood about three inches from my face.
“You. You’re the one.” She practically whispered when she spoke.
I had no idea what she was talking about. I was mesmerized and frozen by her presence. It was such a surprise that Whitney Houston came over…to me!
“You’re the one. It is you. I know you.”
My publicist elbowed me to get up out of my seat, but I couldn’t move. Before I could say anything, she was gone.
I didn’t see Whitney Houston again until the night of the Grammys. If there was anything that could have lifted my spirits at this time, it was receiving my first Grammy Award from her. As a way of showing my appreciation and respect for everyone who had reached out to me over the months since the family tragedy I had just endured, for my Grammy performance I chose to sing a song from my album called “You Pulled Me Through.” When I recorded the song, I had no idea why I was singing it, but I knew it had a purpose. Singing it that night helped me discover that purpose. That song suddenly made perfect sense because I felt as if I had seen the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows in my life. Rickey Minor, my musical director at the time, told me that I am a storyteller and I could paint the picture for an audience through my music. I knew that song had the potential to reach people on a deeply spiritual level—and in the end, I believe it did.
If it’s true that God never gives us anything more than we can handle, he sure knew I would be able to handle things that night. I was able to go out there and still have a sweet taste in my mouth after all of the bitterness I had suffered. I’ve always been emotional when I sing, but on this particular night I was extremely so. As I’ve said, my crying through a song used to irritate my mama. She’d say, “Jenny, why do you have to be crying when you’re up there to sing. What are you crying for, baby girl?” On that night, I was thinking of my family and just wanted to make them proud. I didn’t care if I cried or not. I don’t think anyone did.
I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.
After the Grammys, I agreed to perform on American Idol for the first time since I was voted off. I have to admit, it felt good to be back on that stage. It was like going home. For sure I thought someone there would notice my belly—but they didn’t! I even appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show around this time, and even though I was now several months pregnant, no one ever said a word.
I tried maintaining my regular diet and exercise routine for the first four months of the pregnancy. My first trimester was easy. I had no signs or symptoms that I was carrying a baby and therefore often forgot that I was. David was terrified as I’d race up flights of stairs, go for a run, or do anything physical. I felt great and kept living my life as I normally did. Funny things started to happen though, like not being able to stand the smell of David’s cologne and an occasional unexplained meltdown over the smallest things. I never wore maternity clothes throughout my pregnancy. I just wore my regular clothes, though I went for the looser stretchy ones as my belly grew. This was a big realization for me…maybe I did need to think about losing some weight after this baby was born. If I could wear my regular clothes during pregnancy, maybe they were a little…big.
By my fifth month, my hormones really took over and my body wanted me to eat whatever it wanted to eat. I like spicy food and was craving it morning, noon, and night. I remember going to a Mexican restaurant to order up some nachos (without onions, of course) to go. I was very specific about what I did and did not want on my nachos. The waitress took my order just as I had given it—no onions! Unfortunately, when I opened the box in the car, those nachos were covered in everything I had asked them to skip. I was so mad that I threw them out the window! Now, maybe it was the hormones that caused me to act that way—but everyone knows you don’t play with a pregnant woman’s food!
As he always did, David acted nonchalant about the scene I had just caused. Looking back, I hope it wasn’t because I had been acting that way so often he was no longer fazed by that behavior. Oh well. You can get away with more when you’re pregnant, right, ladies?
Not long after this, my sister sent me a text that said, “If one more person asks me if you’re pregnant, I’m going to give them a due date. Jenny—what’s the deal?” she asked.
I texted her back with my due date, and that’s how I told Julia I was pregnant.
I then wanted to make sure my whole family knew the good news now, before the press started talking. So in the spring of 2009, I decided it was time to make an official announcement to my big family. It had been a while since I had seen them. As I said, I was still wearing my regular clothes, so even after I shared the good news, everyone thought I was playing a trick on them. My aunts were all there that day, and in my family, all I really needed to do was tell my aunts. Sure enough, shortly afterward, everyone else in the extended family was finally in the know.
The rest of the world found out I was pregnant when I sang at Michael Jackson’s memorial on July 7, 2009. The service was held at the Staples Center and was covered by the media worldwide. By this time I was eight months pregnant and really only wanted to be at home resting. I was getting uncomfortable and just wanted my baby out and my body back. Of course, Michael’s death was so sudden and unexpected. So I was happy to be part of the celebration of his life and to have my chance to honor Michael. It was a sad but amazing day, and I was glad that I was included, despite feeling very tired at this point.
Even though my sister has special feelings about these things and had predicted that we were going to have a boy, David and I never knew the sex of our baby until he was born. We shopped for a boy and a girl and had outfits for both in my suitcase that I took to the hospital. We had names picked out for both, too. We had resigned ourselves that whatever it was going to be, it would be.
When the baby came, David said, “It’s a boy, Jenny!”
I could hear my son yelling and screaming. He definitely inherited my strong voice!
And there he was—my little munchkin. David placed our baby atop my chest so I could feel his little heart beat against mine. He looked just like a mini version of David. We named him David Daniel Otunga Jr.
It was love at first sight.
As I held him close, I cried more than my newborn son.
My circle of life was now complete. I had a man I loved and, together, we brought a new life into the world. After everything we had been through, we were both so happy. I couldn’t think of a better way to honor my mother than becoming a mother myself. From the very moment my son was born, I have felt my mama’s presence guiding me. She was such a great role model in so many ways. I want to be that same kind of inspiration to my son, too. And now, I had the rest of my life to do just that.
I loved being a mom from the very start. Little David is the light of my life. Whenever I had to travel for work in those first few months, I did what I had to do and hurried back home to be with my son. I had someone waiting for me, someone who unconditionally loved me with all his heart, and someone I couldn’t wait to hold in my arms. I cherish every moment we have together.
Munchkin quickly developed his own unique personality. The older he got, the more of me I saw in him. My son never met an audience he didn’t like. He loves the sound of a cheering crowd. Maybe it is because
I performed so much during my pregnancy, the sound of a clapping audience is familiar to him.
About a year or so after David Jr. was born, I was doing a show in Barbados. The crowd began to cheer in the middle of one of my songs. I thought it was odd, but chalked it up to the audience just feeling the music. I looked to my right and noticed Munchkin standing off in the corner of the stage with his own microphone in his hands. They were cheering for him—not me.
I asked my engineer to turn up the house lights so David could see the audience. He loved it. He had no fear whatsoever. As long as he is happy, I am, too. I guess we will all have to wait and see what happens!
CHAPTER EIGHT
I AM CHANGING
Within days of bringing David home from the hospital, I made a decision that ultimately altered my health for life. Becoming a mother brought on tremendous responsibilities, but none greater than the obligation I felt to get healthy to be there for my son.
I gained thirty-five pounds during my pregnancy. Like most women, I was shocked that even after giving birth, I still weighed around 237 pounds. I felt that surely I would drop at least some of the weight once that baby came out. This was the biggest number I had seen on the scale in many years. It was time to think about how I was going to lose the excess baby weight and then put that plan into action.
Since I had given birth via C-section, I was unable to do much of anything for the first ten days or so. I could barely get off the sofa and couldn’t walk fully upright without pain for some time. For six weeks after giving birth, going to the gym or working out was definitely out of the question. What I could do during that time was try to break my body’s cravings for the unhealthy foods I freely ate during the last few months of my pregnancy. While I didn’t completely go crazy, I didn’t deprive myself of anything while I was pregnant, either. If I wanted cupcakes—I ate them. If I wanted Mexican food—and I did—often, I ate it. So when the time came to gain control over my eating again and hopefully once and for all, I fell back into my old diet mentality that had worked for me so many times before having my baby.
It was an all-too-familiar routine. I had grown comfortable with eating skinless baked chicken, brown rice, and steamed broccoli—morning, noon, and night. My staple diet foods. My big treat was two apple slices with peanut butter slathered on top. I only drank water and occasionally treated myself to Crystal Light. That way of eating is effective for quick weight loss, but it isn’t very interesting. And like anything, if we get bored we change things up, and usually not in our favor. It’s a total setup for failure because eating that way forever just isn’t realistic.
Once I was finally able to get active, I started walking a loop around my neighborhood that took close to thirty minutes to complete. To be honest, when I first began taking these walks, this same route took me closer to an hour because I had to take it slow. After a few weeks I was able to cut that time in half. I relished these walks by myself because those precious moments were my “thinking” time. I enjoy being outdoors, especially when it’s really hot and humid. I put my headphones on and away I go. I do most everything with music playing in my ears. It gives me motivation to get up off that sofa and inspiration to take those extra laps. But sometimes, the motivation was hard to come by. If the baby had been up a lot or he was napping and I could get a few quiet moments at home, sometimes I just wanted to stay on the couch.
Whenever I’d try to talk myself out of going for a walk, and there were a few days like that, I’d take myself through a series of simple tasks so I would get up and go.
1. Get up.
2. Find your house keys.
3. Put on some shoes.
4. Grab your iPod.
5. Walk out the front door.
Like I said, I like to set goals for myself, and these small goals got me out the door more than a few times.
And if after all that I still didn’t move from the chair, as a surefire way of talking myself into just doing it, I’d trick myself by saying, “It is okay to walk for just ten minutes—because that would be better than doing nothing.” And once I got up, ten minutes turned into thirty and eventually an hour. It got to the point where I would begin to miss how good I felt from working out that I’d actually get inspired by that, too.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the number of obese people in the United States will increase from 99 million in 2008 to 164 million by 2030. The U.S. obesity rate will rise from 32 percent to about 50 percent for men and from 35 percent to between 45 percent and 52 percent for women.
Later in the year, when I was well on my way to losing the baby weight I had gained, I met with a team of people from Weight Watchers. They sat with me and explained the principles of their program. The best way to think about the program is as a plan that gives its members a personalized budget of Points values per day. Your available Points are calculated based on your weight, age, and activity level. Every food has a Points value and you use those values to fill your day up with food. You keep track of your Points by writing down everything you eat. There is flexibility in the program in this regard, but many members cite tracking what they eat and the values associated with their food as the key to their success.
To be frank, I thought it all sounded lame and I wasn’t all that interested. All I could think of was, Who wants to eat and then have to write all of that down? I was polite, but I felt like this program was in no way right for me.
The representative said that the way the numbers work is that they quantify food for you. They show you that one food choice is better than another based on the Points assigned to that food. For example, a processed nutrition bar, which is something most people think of as a good choice when trying to lose weight, might have a seven PointsPlus® value and may carry as many as two hundred and fifty calories. On the other hand, a banana has a zero PointsPlus® value and will actually keep you fuller for longer than a protein bar. It has more fiber and more water and vitamins, too. So the program quantifies food in a way that teaches you to navigate the environment that we all live in. As I listened, one of the more promising aspects of the program for me was learning that the program builds in some extra flexibility for you because they know that if you don’t get in some of the things you love—the sweets you crave and such, you won’t stick with the plan. They actually give you an added allowance of an extra forty-nine Points every week so you can have those things along the way.
What this means is, if you’re going to a wedding over the weekend and you don’t want to sit it out because you’re afraid of breaking the plan, you can still go. You can even have a cocktail or a piece of the wedding cake without worrying about your Points allowance for the day. If a friend calls you to go to dinner and you’ve already had twenty-five of your daily twenty-nine Points, you can pull from the extra forty-nine allowed for the week. It gives a kind of real-life flexibility I had never seen in any other plan. When I first talked to Weight Watchers, they hadn’t yet launched their current program, PointsPlus®, but did so soon after. It is now in full swing and has been used by millions to great results.
About the Weight Watchers®
PointsPlus® Program
The biggest innovation from Weight Watchers in more than a decade, PointsPlus® uses the latest scientific research to create a program that goes far beyond traditional calorie counting to give people the edge they need to lose weight and keep it off in a fundamentally healthier way.
The program is designed to educate and encourage people to make choices that:
Favor foods the body works harder to convert into energy, resulting in fewer net calories absorbed.
Focus on foods that create a sense of fullness and satisfaction and are more healthful.
Nudge toward natural foods rather than foods with excess added sugars and fats.
Still allow flexibility for indulgences, special occasions, and eating out.
HOW IT WORKS
While calorie counting has
been the foundation of many weight-loss programs, including the Weight Watchers former Points® system, the PointsPlus® program goes beyond just calories to help people make healthful and satisfying choices.
The formula takes into account the energy contained in each of the components that make up calories—protein, carbohydrates, fat, and fiber—and it also factors in how hard the body works to process them (conversion cost) as well as their respective eating satisfaction (satiety). As a result, the PointsPlus® formula guides people beyond reducing overall calorie intake toward foods that enhance feelings of satisfaction and fullness.
In addition to the new formula, foods that are low in energy density, and therefore more highly satisfying, are emphasized within the program. Specifically, all fresh fruits and most vegetables now have zero PointsPlus® values. Furthermore, power foods, an important element of the new PointsPlus® program, provide an easy way to identify the best food choices among similar foods; for example, those foods with higher eating satisfaction, lower sugar, lower sodium, healthier fat, and more fiber, and it also factors how hard the body works to process them (conversion cost) as well as their respective eating satisfaction (satiety). As a result, the PointsPlus® formula guides people beyond reducing overall calorie intake toward foods that enhance feelings of satisfaction and fullness.
The program features, combined with the fundamentals of the Weight Watchers approach—that is, weight loss built on healthy eating, physical activity, behavior modification, and a supportive environment—make the Points-Plus® program revolutionary and innovative.
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