I Got This (14 page)

Although I always liked to exercise, at this time I had fallen into the extreme trap that took all of the fun out of it for me. The only real reward I was getting was the satisfaction of knowing that
as long as I exercised hard, I could go out and eat whatever I wanted. Wrong! Liz explained that extreme exercise doesn’t save you from poor food choices. It can be difficult to exercise and erase away that chocolate cake or pizza pie. It doesn’t work that way. There is no such thing as a balanced equation with those things. If you’re not eating the right foods in the right amounts, all the exercise in the world won’t combat the caloric intake.

What was really hard to adjust to was that after I had my baby it became much harder to get out of the house to exercise. Even if I wanted to hit the gym, there were so many days I was too tired or tied to the house because Munchkin was sleeping. I started using that as an excuse not to do anything. Well, that didn’t last long once I started the program.

Liz helped me embrace that the goal with exercise is to have as many options as possible. My close friends often call me “Random” because my workouts are never the same. I like doing fun things that I enjoy, from biking to basketball. Yeah, this sista’s got game! I figure that as long as I am moving, I am burning calories. Some days I will choose to run outside or sprint up hills in our local park while others I’d rather use the treadmill at the gym. When I’m on the road, I still exercise to DVDs, especially when there isn’t a gym available or when time is short. I like to run up and down stairs, too. I used to live on the twenty-sixth floor of my apartment building in Chicago and often took the stairs instead of taking the elevator. When your schedule is as busy as mine gets, you have to find
windows of opportunity to do something active. Even if it’s just going to and from the car—I’ll take the harder, longer way to get there.

I’m a woman who likes progress. I want to see positive results for all of my efforts. If I am working out, then I expect to see a difference in my body. I’m definitely impatient, though. I hate waiting for anything, so the harder I work, the less time I need to wait to reap the rewards.

Like me, my fiancé is a workout fanatic, too. It’s such a blessing to have a partner who shares your same beliefs in getting healthy as opposed to someone who is constantly trying to sabotage your efforts. David is a bodybuilder looking to bulk up his muscles and create mass while I am looking to slim down and elongate, so our workouts are completely different. When it comes to exercise, David never imposes his beliefs on me because we are going after two totally different looks.

The important message I heard about working out and what I want to share is that you create your own opportunities and your own limitations.

W
hen I was assessing a diet plan that was right for me, I looked at many options—none of which made sense for my life. Every program I looked at was nothing more than a food plan. Either you are getting preprepared food delivered via the
frozen-food section of your local grocery store or through a home delivery program or you had to read a book and follow their preset menus. N.F.J.—Not for Jennifer.

What the Weight Watchers
PointsPlus
^®
program does so well is it expands your options by teaching you to eat real food in the real world. It’s so easy. You really can eat anything you want and it allows you necessary flexibility to keep you on the plan. And it teaches you how to implement activity that fits into your daily lifestyle without telling you that you absolutely have to hit the gym. It teaches behavior modification by helping you become aware of the bad food habits you’ve created that are holding you back. And finally, the program offers a tremendous amount of support through its meetings. For many, the meetings are where the rubber hits the road. They can make the difference between staying with the plan and leaving it.

While I wasn’t able to attend as many traditional meetings as I would have liked to, when I did, I often found those to be truly inspirational. I was finally able to sit in a room with other people who were having the same struggles and challenges I was having. Hearing their stories was so helpful to know how other people were troubleshooting their problems and how they were receiving support from others. I found it so inspiring to meet other members who had been struggling with their weight for as long as I had been because it helped me come to a better understanding of my own journey. One member told me she had rejoined Weight Watchers fifteen times over the years. I couldn’t believe it because I had
become such an advocate for the program I could never imagine leaving! Still, she never gave up. She eventually came back and has finally found her stride. That is dedication.

Permanent weight loss doesn’t come with an on and off switch. It is not something you do for a little while and think it is going to change your body. My schedule is as jam-packed as one can get and I still found the time to make the program work. You have to want weight-loss success so badly that no mountain, river, or ocean could keep you from reaching your goals. If you have that drive, passion, and commitment, there is no way you won’t get there.

Whenever I couldn’t make a traditional meeting, I always made time in my schedule to talk with Liz about my progress and my occasional frustrations. Amazingly, Liz was even able to meet me in South Africa for a few days when I was on location for four months shooting
Winnie.
There she introduced me to South African Weight Watchers leaders I could call on if I needed extra support. Liz was available when I needed her.

When I signed on to do the role of
Winnie
, I agreed to conform to the character, which meant losing weight before shooting and learning the proper dialect. I was already well on my way with the weight loss, so I wasn’t concerned about meeting that requirement. I was, however, utterly terrified about learning the accent. I started working with a dialect coach two months before filming began. I wasn’t familiar with the South African accent Winnie Mandela spoke with, but as an actress, I felt the burden of responsibility to
get it right. I thought about Meryl Streep and all of the amazing characters she convincingly played throughout her career and used her as my inspiration to nail the language.

I never had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Mandela in person, but I knew she was an important figure in history and I wanted to honor her many worldly contributions. Playing her was not to be taken lightly, especially as an American actress portraying an African woman. I needed to be completely in the role, and for the first week or so, I was struggling with that. If I couldn’t make that commitment, I wanted to do the right thing and pull myself from the film. Making
Winnie
was a huge and scary time in my life because of the immense nature of the character and because this was the first time I was separated from my baby for an extended period. My son was too young to make the trip to South Africa because going there requires a series of vaccinations. Also, David didn’t want him to travel, which I completely understood. It was very far away, and not always terribly safe for such a young baby who is more vulnerable to infections and who cannot have the necessary inoculations. When I signed on for the project, I didn’t have a family. But now I did. Being away from them was by far the hardest part of making the film.

When we started filming, I believe Darrell Roodt, the director of the movie, could tell I was struggling. He came to me one day to acknowledge that playing Winnie Mandela was a lot for anyone to take on. He said, “After everything you’ve been through and all
that you’ve experienced—you’re still here and that lets me know that you want to be here.”

At the time, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, but I listened to Darrell and heard what he was trying to say. Whenever I’m in a situation, whether it was being eliminated from
American Idol
or up against 782 other actresses for a role, I have to fall back on my faith that God has a plan for me. God put me here, so I had no choice but to go with it. I will take that ride because I know it’s my destiny. It took me another solid week to immerse myself in the role of Winnie, but once I did, I was in it to win it.

We shot the entire movie on location in South Africa, including Cape Town and Victoria. My days were long and deeply trying because the role was extremely emotional. I got up very early in the mornings, usually between 4 and 5
A.M.
and didn’t return back to my hotel until very late at night. If I had a day off, I used it to catch up on my sleep or take in the culture of the cities and tiny villages that surrounded me. Although the producers offered to take the cast on safari, I didn’t want to do that. I was there to do a job, and when I wasn’t working, I wanted to experience the local communities and meet the people. When I did, the conditions that I saw were beyond my understanding of poverty. On my way home from shooting one day, I looked out the car window and saw a little boy who was only slightly older than my baby, washing his underwear in a river. He seemed so happy and content. Despite his situation, I was struck by how joyful this boy appeared.

I saw townships where people lived in mud huts with thatched roofs, had no running water, no plumbing, no electricity, and no vegetation. I noticed smoke coming from one of the townships one day—that seemed odd. I thought there was a fire burning, but there wasn’t. The smell of the smoke was so strong that it gave me a pounding headache. When I asked someone about it, they explained that this was the way those people warmed their homes. I was only exposed to the fumes for a short time and it made me sick; I couldn’t imagine how the people who live in that township felt living with the smell every night. As we pulled away I saw two little girls out of the corner of my eye. They were both barefoot, walking on glass and dirt. I couldn’t imagine letting my baby walk on the city streets of Chicago with no shoes, let alone the filth-laden roads these children were on. And still, those little girls just smiled and waved as we drove away. I asked someone from the crew if they could help me arrange to send shoes to all of the people in that area. And we did. When we returned to give them away, one woman fell to her knees crying because she finally had her own pair of shoes. In that moment, I suddenly realized how spoiled and shallow most people really are. Shortly before going to Africa, my makeup artist and I were in France for a fashion show and we were fussing over the fact that our hotel didn’t have electrical outlets in the bathroom. After seeing how these people lived in Africa, I feel so foolish for acting that way. We live like royalty compared to the conditions I saw in Africa. In many ways, the experience
there made me grow up. I learned so much about myself through the eyes of Winnie Mandela.

Aside from being away from my family, the hardest part of being in South Africa was trying to stay on the Weight Watchers program. This was the test of all tests on my weight-loss journey. Between the time change and the nature of my demanding production schedule, it was very hard to adjust to being there. The schedule hugely impacted my eating habits because my waking hours were much longer than when I am home, which meant I had to make my Points stretch throughout the day. This took some getting used to, especially because I was eating on the fly, and in between takes.

Thankfully, the portion sizes in this part of the world are much smaller than the enormous American sizes, their food production is less processed, and how food is delivered is so different. Instead of distributing overprocessed foods that can keep on a shelf longer, suppliers invested their money in better refrigeration and smarter packaging so they can package fresh foods. This worked to my advantage and was a real eye-opening experience for me. Because their emphasis was on offering fresher foods instead of foods laden with preservatives, I could continue to move away from the processed foods I had sometimes relied on before Weight Watchers and eat fresher, healthier foods. Even the food labels in South Africa were very different than the ones we have back in the United States, so I had to spend some time figuring out ingredients and
calories. Because their country is on the metric system, the labels don’t carry the same numbers I was used to, which meant I also had to learn to calculate my Points in a whole new way. But I did.

Winnie
was challenging on so many levels. I was making a film that was filled with so much darkness and was deeply investing myself into my character. I was away from my family and found myself feeling sad, lonely, and depressed. As a result, I actually stopped eating enough food to maintain my weight. I was unintentionally losing more weight than I wanted to.

At the time I was actually as scared to lose more weight as I was to gain it. It was so outside of any scenario I had ever played out in my head. I didn’t think there would ever be a day that Jennifer Hudson would be afraid of being too
skinny.
Thankfully, the Weight Watchers team was right there by my side helping me to figure out things so I didn’t face a diet disaster. It took some convincing, but I actually had to start adding extra Points to my plan so I could maintain a healthy weight and look consistent on camera. I was eating more, but it was healthy food this time around.

I was so determined to get this—and not use being on location as an excuse to fall off my program. I understood the principles of Weight Watchers inside and out by now. There was no reason I couldn’t take everything Weight Watchers had taught me and all of my experiences with me and make this work. If I could rise to the challenge, I could take my weight loss to the next level.

I really believe that it was my time and experience in South
Africa which solidified me as a person who actually lives a healthy lifestyle and no longer allows my environment to get in the way. And because of that, I finally
trusted the plan
. Completely. There was no doubt it works.

“
I got this
,” I said aloud.

And I did.

As I grew more confident, I began to notice that people from the cast and crew were starting to pay attention to what I was doing. Several people began asking lots of questions about Weight Watchers and my personal program. The script supervisor used to bring me chocolate every single day on the set. She kept asking people how I could eat chocolate and still be so skinny. Someone finally told her that I track my food and then keep a tally of my Points. By doing this, I stay within my limits and won’t fall away from the plan. Intrigued, she came to me to find out more about the Weight Watchers program. Before I knew it, I had several people from the movie following the plan, too. I suddenly felt like the pied piper leading the way.