Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life (29 page)

For all the work that had gone into getting ready for the commercial, the shoot itself was a simple process. Anticlimactic is
probably a better description. There were three parts to it. The first segment featured me in a robe, talking about how I used to dread summers. In the second, I wore a one-piece swimsuit. Finally, in the third I wore a bikini.

By the third part, I was ready to be finished. You would think my unveiling would have been a big deal, but it was more of an anticlimax to months of worry and hard work. I stood around in that two-piece as if I went to work dressed like that every day. Though I felt slightly naked, I told myself, as I had the day before, be naked. I blocked out the cameras, the crew, and the rest. I had one moment where I thought about asking if it was really necessary to have so many extras standing right behind me, looking at my ass. But I could live with them seeing my cellulite.

That’s right, I was able to shrug off my cellulite. I see plenty of teenage girls on the beach with fat-free bodies and think good for you. See you in thirty years. Do I wish I didn’t have cellulite? Yes. Does it make me self-conscious in a bathing suit? Sure it does. But do I look better now? Definitely. And I can deal with that. It’s one more reminder that I’m not perfect.

But that’s okay. I’m not supposed to be perfect. I’m supposed to be me, my best me possible—and that’s what I hoped would come across on the commercial.

Once we finished, I allowed myself an enormous sigh of relief. I heard applause and then was congratuated by Tom, Christopher, my managers, the Jenny Craig people, the director, and my parents. My dad, as he’d done since I was a kid on
One Day at a Time
, told me that I looked terrific, like his Gina Lollobrigida, which was what he had always called me. I laughed to myself, knowing that earlier my hairstylist, Roque, had gone for a Sophia Loren look.

After a break for lunch, we regrouped and shot a second commercial.
This one starred my mom and Tom. Back in December, I had promised her we would do another commercial after she recovered from her chest infection. Now, as I watched her climb on the back of a big Harley motorcycle with Tom, I was prouder of her than I was of myself. They really did roar off as I said, “Hey, Mom, where’re you going with my boyfriend?” Inside, I was thinking, “You go, girl!” Ironically enough, it was the same thing she had said to me.

At the end of the day, I let out a celebratory whoop and we broke out the prosecco. The next day, I went for a three-and-a-half-mile run with Tom, and amazingly enough, I loved it. Then we shot two more commercials and I met about my upcoming
Oprah
appearance and
People
magazine shoot. That night, Jack, Marc, Nancy, and Kacie (my wardrobe gals), Tom, and I went out for Mexican food. Even though the pressure was off, I didn’t go crazy. I only had a handful of chips and left more margarita in my glass than I drank.

With Christopher’s help, I had changed. Something had clicked inside me. Indeed, Tom and I stayed in Palm Springs for a few days after the shoot, and we began our weekend with a long run down the city’s main drag, once again running for fun, not because it was a means to an end. Now it was my life. It was something positive and healthy for myself. A new part of my life had started.

On Tuesday, March 17, I flew to Chicago and taped
Oprah
the next day. She was kind and sweet and gave me major props, but one of her two new cocker spaniel puppies had died over the weekend and the other was sick, so she was stoic and just trying to get through the day. I was on the set for maybe five minutes. I returned
home that afternoon and three days later shot the cover of
People
.

We took the photos on the beach in Malibu. It was 57 degrees outside, way too cold to be prancing on the beach in next-to-nothing. But I smiled through the shoot, and then happily and eagerly exhaled. I was finally done with this monster I’d created from an itty-bitty bikini—or so I thought.

Less than a week later, I was getting myself a second cup of coffee and half-listening to the
Today
show. Before going to a commercial, they teased the next segment, showing a magazine cover with the face blurred out. Over it, one of the hosts asked something like, “Which former child star posed in a bikini at age forty-eight and looks this hot!” Suddenly I paid more attention. I caught the tail-end of the shot and thought, what? That can’t be me.

The magazine wasn’t supposed to be out for another week. But sure enough, when the show returned from the break I saw myself on the magazine’s cover, standing with one hand on my hip, in my bikini. I blurted out, “Holy sh—” Tom came in and saved me from having a minor coronary, as well as eye damage. My face was nearly inside the TV, trying to get a close-up view.

At first I was a little disappointed in the choice they made. I didn’t think it was the best photo we took that day. But I understood the picture. My face clearly expressed a feeling of astonishment, as if you could hear the little voice in my head say, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” In fact, they ran that quote on the cover: “I can’t believe I did it.” And it was absolutely true. Even in the days and weeks after, I still couldn’t believe it.

I knew that being on the cover in a bikini would generate some attention, but it was hard believe what a big deal it actually became. All of the TV entertainment shows led their broadcasts with the
story. Both the
New York Post
and
Daily News
ran full-sized photos. I also landed on Perez Hilton’s website, which made me laugh. The man barely knew that I existed. My status in his celebrity-filled world was so low that he called me a Z-lister.

“I don’t know whether to be excited or horrified,” I exclaimed to my managers, Jack and Marc, who updated me on the spreading buzz.

“Excited,” they said. “It’s great.”

“But aren’t there more important stories?” I asked. “I mean we have an African-American president facing two wars, Wall Street has screwed with our financial system, the car industry where my dad spent his entire career is in free fall, newspapers are going out of business…. and we’re talking about a forty-eight-year-old woman in a bikini?”

“Yes, we are,” they said.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I continued. “I’m pleased—actually I’m amazed that people are still interested. It’s weird.”

I went through a gamut of emotions. For a day or two, I was on a strange high from all the compliments and attention. How could I not be a little swept away? Then I got mildly annoyed and even a little amused at speculation that my picture had been retouched and reshaped to look bikini-ready. I understood why people wondered. If it hadn’t been me on the cover, I probably would have been like a lot of other people and asked how could she possibly look like that?

I assumed the
People
magazine’s photo editors had applied the usual amount of air-brushing to smooth out my skin, eliminate a wrinkle or two, any pimples, and even out the color. But I was not photoshopped in any way, shape, or form.

That weekend the magazine hit the stands, Wolfie flew to see his girlfriend. He hadn’t said anything to me about the
People
cover yet. However, when he called from the airport to let me know he’d made it to Liv’s, I asked if he’d noticed anything interesting as he walked through the terminal.

“Like on a magazine?” I hinted.

“Oh, yeah, Ma,” he said. “You were everywhere. You looked good.”

His lack of enthusiasm kept me real. In fact, I quickly got to the point where I felt the attention was enough, more than enough. I began to point out women on other magazine covers who looked much better, who really had knockout bodies, like Jenny McCarthy, Cameron Diaz, and Halle Berry. They are physical marvels. To a certain extent, you have to be born with those genes.

However, mine is the body that anybody could have if she watched her diet and worked out long and hard enough. My point through this whole deal has been that my transformation from fat to fit to fitter is available to anyone who wants it. I think people got the message. But again, it was almost too much for me to handle.

Toward the end of the week, I went into a depression—a deep, dark, sorry-assed funk. I tumbled down into a hole where I moped my way through the day. I couldn’t believe what a wimp I was being. I didn’t understand it. Tom was incredibly patient and understanding. He kept his distance until I needed to talk, then he listened and gently helped me see that I was exhausted. I’d worked nonstop every day for nearly a month, with my entire being focused on a single goal. Quite simply, I’d run out of gas, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I walked around wondering what was wrong and asking myself what was next. My voice echoed through my head,
Now what
?

I had a sense that I might have upset the natural balance of my life. It was like a bad joke or metaphysical
Punk’d
episode. I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame, and now I was having another fifteen minutes. I thought you only got one. What was going on? It made me worry. Too much niceness was coming at me again. Too many good things were happening. As was my tendency, I prepared for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s just been a bizarre month,” I told Tom as I tapped out an e-mail at the computer.

I was in my bathrobe. He had come back from a short run and was gulping down a glass of juice.

“You need to rest,” he said. “You’re being beaten down by your emotions. Maybe you’re getting sick from stress. It’s like a rubber band snapping. You were pulled so tight. Something has to give.”

He was right. A moment later, I broke. I burst into tears—and with that rush of water came a torrent of fears and frustrations. Exhausted and sick, I stayed in bed for a couple of days, blew my nose, and let the dust settle. I felt like I was a fraud. Even after a couple of years as a Jenny Craig spokesperson, I wasn’t accustomed to being associated with being fit or in shape. That wasn’t in my resume. I worried the focus was too much on my body. I wanted the message to be a more inspirational one about getting through the issues in your life and coming out better, stronger, and wiser.

“What makes you think it’s not inspirational?” asked Tom.

I didn’t have an answer. He reminded me of the picture that magazines and newspapers had run of a shirtless Obama on the beach in Hawaii. He said the President might have been surprised people would care about something as trite as him walking out of the surf in a bathing suit. On the other hand, who could argue
there was something inspirational about seeing a nearly forty-eight-year-old man in his position looking fit and enjoying his family?

While over time I would come to agree with Tom, I still had to get over one final hurdle, the one that made me feel that I needed to head for the basement before the storm hit.

Deep down, I didn’t feel like—or I should more accurately say a part of me didn’t feel like—I deserved the good things that were happening to me. It’s why I felt like a great big phony as I lay in bed, wallowing in a pool of snot and sorrow. It’s why I’d sabotaged moments in my past and failed to enjoy some of the good times to the fullest. It’s why I’d always regained the weight I’d lost on previous diets.

But as I talked over these fears with Tom, I realized they no longer rang true. My words had neither substance nor sincerity. After all that I’d accomplished, I couldn’t take these old thought habits seriously. Good things do happen to me and others for a reason. We make them happen. My weight loss was real. I’d kept the weight off for more than a year. That was real, too. I’d also gotten into the best shape of my life, and more importantly I was getting my whole life into its best shape.

Instead of worrying whether I deserved these things, I told myself to appreciate them and be grateful, to take it all in and recognize that it felt good, that I felt good—and that was, after all, the goal. I’d made a conscious decision to feel this way and I’d worked my butt off to get there.

“Why not enjoy life while you can?”

My mom said that, not me. She called as I was shaking off my cold, emerging from my depression, and getting back into the flow of normal, daily life. She and my dad were leaving the following
Tuesday on a cruise to Hawaii. She was excited. It had been almost six months to the day since she had gotten sick on a cruise in the Caribbean. She had no fears about going away again. She couldn’t wait to get back on the ship.

“I’m ready to eat and drink and dance,” she said.

“Good for you, Mom,” I said. “Have a drink for me and toast you and Dad. You’re my inspiration. I want to be like you when I grow up.”