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If She Can Lose 117 Pounds, How about you??? |
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Reprinted from Recent Issue of People Magazine
Talk about dramatic entrances. When svelte Yvette Freeman walked into ER’s ninth season kickoff party last July, “ I saw people’s eyes pop open wide, “ says the actress who plays nurse Haleh Adams.
Her producers congratulated her and then said she was fired. But only from the first episode, which was set a mere 15 minutes after last season’s dramatic finale and couldn’t include such a dramatic weight loss.
Freeman doesn’t mind. “How many people in Hollywood,” she says laughing,” get written out of something because they’re too small?”
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She was back by episode 2 last week, and viewers will indeed be seeing a lot less of her.
After hitting 257 pounds last November, the 5’5” Freeman enrolled in UCLA’s Risk Factor Obesity Program; She now weighs a stunning 140.
I didn’t recognize her,” says Alex Kingston, who plays Dr. Elizabeth Corday. “I’ve never seen that sort of weight loss before. It’s a huge feat.”
And a necessary one for Freeman, 45, whose doctor warned her last year that her bulk put her at risk for type 2 diabetes.
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There were other warnings. Last September, while dining with her husband Lanny Hartley, 64, a jazz pianist, she was slathering butter on her French bread. He took it from me and said,” That’s too much,” she says.
“I got angry.” Yet she refused to listen even though she was far from happy with her looks. “They would get so many butt shots on ER,” she says. “I can look at reruns and see myself gaining weight.” Finally after two close friends, both overweight, died last year, one from diabetes complications and the other from heart problems, “I started looking at my life,” Freeman says.
She ruled out diets she had already tried unsuccessfully, including the Zone, Atkins, and Weight Watchers.
Gastric bypass was not an option because, “The thought of cutting into my body scared the crap out of me,” she says.
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257 pounds |
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140 pounds |