True You (18 page)

Battling with my weight issues. During “When I Think of You.”

Here with Buckwheat. On my way to the MTV Movie Awards, the same day I got home from the hospital. If you look closely, you’ll see I’m still wearing my patient ID bracelet. Things aren’t always the way they seem.

I still have this shirt of Jimmy. Beautiful memories.

At the Malibu house with Puffy. The beach is a gift that reassures me that everything will be all right, no matter how I’m feeling.

Some people in the media loved sharing these pictures of me with you. What no one asked, and no one knew, was that I actually had more endurance here than in other images where my weight is down. I was running 5 miles a day in the sand and I was eating very clean. The stress wouldn’t let me drop the weight yet.

Fighting so hard to keep it all together when you’re on the verge of falling apart.

In shape and ready to tour. All the exercise in the world doesn’t matter until you find the True You.

I was shooting a video for
Damita Jo
when this picture was taken.

My first Times Square billboard. Blackglama.

By David Allen

W
hen I saw that Janet Jackson had scheduled an appointment with me in October 2002, I was excited. I’m a fan. I expected her to show up with an entourage. I was delighted—and impressed—when she arrived alone. She was sweet, soft-spoken,
and refreshingly down-to-earth. I liked her immediately. She was dressed in simple sweats and wore a baseball cap. She seemed a little camouflaged to me. Her answers to my questions were very short, usually a word or two. I also noticed her texting. I didn’t feel as though I had her undivided attention. With all my clients, first impressions can tell me a lot about their personalities and habits. It is important to understand how they perceive and process the stresses of their life. This can be very helpful in moving forward and making subjective observations on an individual basis.

Janet seemed asymptomatic. Her main interest was in losing weight. In between the mandatory questions, I began to get a feel for her lifestyle. I identified her as an undereater/overeater, as many high-achievement professionals are. That description might sound weird, but it is a very common phenomenon. Many people will undereat during their day due to their intense work ethic and their focus on children and family. They will skip meals or allow too much time between them. Then they will transition to the evening hours, at which point they will overeat, indulge, and continuously snack. In the case of Janet, she often neglected to eat during the day. She usually missed breakfast. She worked relentlessly, starving herself until the cravings took over. Then she would binge on whatever meal she could fit into her overloaded schedule.

For example, we had an on-location appointment during one of Janet’s video shoots. After sitting for about three hours waiting to see her, I met her in her trailer and asked, “Have you eaten anything?”

“No, I haven’t eaten all day,” she said.

I told her that she had to eat something, but before she was even able to have a cup of tea, they called her back onto the set, where she worked for another three to four hours. Many people can relate to being similarly stuck in lunchtime meetings or getting so bogged down with their day that they “forget” to eat or don’t have the time to grab something sensible.

Janet had a long history of dieting. Her body weight and fat composition had yo-yoed throughout her life. Janet had struggled with her body image since a young age.

I don’t believe in diets. I don’t offer a diet. I look at diets as prescriptions for failure. A diet has a beginning, middle, and end. At the end of the diet, the dieter inevitably reverts to the lifestyle that caused the weight gain. To maintain a healthy weight requires maintaining a healthy lifestyle. That’s the heart of my approach.

I concluded my initial consultation with Janet by asking her to complete as “homework” my extensive packet of lifestyle questionnaires that focus on food preferences, personal habits, gastrointestinal function, adrenal health, sleep habits, hormonal balance, cognitive function, and all major physiological systems. I also requested that a comprehensive set of specific blood tests be done for Janet. I planned to see her in one week, at which time she would start her new journey.

“Let me go over all your material, Janet,” I said. “Let’s meet in a week and I’ll recommend a plan.”