Janet Jackson is taking control.
The singer/actress, 45, who has talked frankly about her history of yo-yo dieting, is a new spokeswoman for Nutrisystem, the commercial weight-loss program known for its home-delivered packaged foods.
Jackson, who is 5-foot-4, doesn't want to talk about the number on the scales -- although the company says she has lost 10 pounds in a little more than a month -- because "I'm not viewing this as a diet," she says. "I'm not putting a number on it. I don't look at the scale. I'm going about it in a different way this time."
She doesn't need to lose "a great amount," she says, and she'll stop trying to slim down "when I feel good about it." She is following the Nutrisystem program because "it's not just about losing weight. It's about making it a way of life. It's about maintaining weight."
She works out six days a week, usually running at least 3 miles. "I try to be consistent. Right now, I've been on this kick of running outdoors."
For more than three decades, Jackson has struggled with her weight, including having large weight fluctuations. In 2006, she weighed 180 pounds, and in 2008, she lost 60 pounds, she writes in her book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself with David Ritz. "Some of my battles with weight have been very public," she says in the book. "But most of them have been internal. Even at my thinnest, when my body was being praised, I wasn't happy with what I saw in the mirror or how I felt about myself."
Her issues with weight began when she was a child. At age 10, she landed a role on the TV sitcom Good Times. "They told me I had to lose weight, and I wasn't a heavy kid," she says. Her late brother, Michael, often teased her. "He talked about my butt being too big. Some of us have a big butt, and some of us don't. I've learned to accept it and love it."
Over the years, she used food to comfort herself. "I used food in an unhealthy way -- sometimes not eating enough and being too thin, and at other times eating when I was depressed, stressed."
As for her weight-loss journey, she says, "I've come a long way. I haven't reached where I want to be. I'm a work in progress."
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