My Life is Under Construction - The Jackie Guerra Story by Ronda Einbinder Actress Jackie Guerra was a vivacious young child with a lot of personality. She was very close to her mother, and they enjoyed spending time together. When Jackie was eight, they decided to work together to support Jackie?s Girl Scout Troop by selling more cookies than any of the other girls. The two of them were great salespeople and together they reached their cookie goal. When the cookies were delivered to Jackie?s home to be distributed to their customers, they were temporarily placed in the garage for safekeeping. ?The first thing my mom said when the cookies arrived was ?these are not for you,?? Jackie recounted. When night fell, and her family was tucked away in their beds, Jackie concocted a scheme. ?The first thing I did when they went to bed that night was sneak into the garage and take a box of cookies. I brought them into my room and I ate the cookies. They were so yummy. It was exciting and thrilling. Then I hid the box under my bed and the next morning I continued eating them in the bathroom as the shower water ran and they thought I was showering.? Jackie took money out of her piggy bank and put it into the money envelope. After a few nights of this, Jackie ran out of money. Her next plan was to take one cookie out of each box. ?I thought, ?Mom is going to notice if boxes are missing, so I will take one cookie.?? That Saturday, Jackie?s secret was discovered when her mom realized that she had opened 20 boxes. Jackie?s mother was furious. Jackie overheard her mom say to her dad, ?Do you want her to get fat?? Jackie explains, ?It was the first time in my life that I realized she wasn?t mad at me for taking the cookies, she was mad at me because I was fat.? The cookies marked the beginning of a twenty-five year battle over weight between Jackie and her mother. The week following the cookie fiasco, Jackie was marched into Weight Watchers and forced to get up on a scale in front of a room full of people. The end result was a very embarrassed eight-year-old child who would spend the next 13 years battling bulimia. ?Every aspect of my relationship with my mother was great and fun, and we were the best of friends, except when it came to my weight,? Jackie said. ?My body and my weight were a huge, contentious issue with us my entire life. I don?t care who you are, you have to recognize that an eight-year-old has not made lifestyle choices for themselves. I wasn?t feeding myself food that I was going out buying and preparing. I wasn?t living a life that I constructed; it is a life that you are taught.? As the title of her new book Under Construction explains, Jackie is now constructing a life that she chooses to live. Jackie Guerra and her brother John, named after Jackie and John Kennedy, grew up with their Mexican-American parents in Los Angeles. They were a close-knit family with a houseful of relatives, making for a lively home. ?My house was party central and all my friends would come to my house because my parents made it super comfortable for people,? Jackie explained. ?In ninth grade my friends and I went to our first dance, and it was so exciting. We all got dressed at my house, and I wore my mom?s Chanel N°5 and thought I really had it going on. I was a good dancer and had a lot of male friends. I thought it would be the greatest night of my life; instead, it was the most devastating night of my life because it was the first time that I realized that there are two different kinds of girls. There are girls that boys are friends with, and then there are the girls boys dance with. I did not get asked to dance once. When I went home my mom said, ?Don?t worry, mija (my daughter). We will start a diet tomorrow.?? Jackie?s mom was a former Playboy Bunny at the Key Club in Chicago. Her sexy body gave her the power she sought. Jackie, on the other hand, was a smart, driven young woman who dreamt of becoming the first Mexican-American female Senator from California. Even after years of dieting and at five feet five inches and 259 pounds, Jackie was not bothered by her weight, because she had self-confidence in knowing she could do anything she set her mind at doing. Working for a union organizer in Los Angeles after college, Jackie frequently put in 20-hour days, returning home to the apartment she decorated all in black. She did not realize she had no personal life outside work. Things changed one evening when she took a group of union workers to get a drink at a local gay bar. ?I was working on a boycott and it was intense, so I took them out for a drink,? Jackie said. ?The bar had an open mike talent show, and I thought I would sign up and tell these people about the boycott.? Jackie got on that stage and walked away with the $500 prize. ?The lights and the laughter and people hanging on to every word were so exciting,? Jackie recalls, with the excitement from that night still audible in her voice. ?I received more signatures than I did on the picket line. I said, ?This is how I am going to change the world.? I thought, ?I am going to get a talk show and talk about the things that are important to me.?? So at age 23, Jackie quit her job and began performing stand-up comedy. ?Things started falling into place because I was doing what I was supposed to do,? Jackie commented. I did stand-up for five months [before] I was approached by an amazing woman who became my agent. I went to colleges around the country and within a year I had a development deal with Columbia Tristar to develop a sitcom about my life.? The pilot was shot, the show premiered on September 10, 1995, and First Time Out was picked up by the networks. The show, which only lasted one season, co-starred King of Queens star Leah Remini as Jackie?s roommate and Rita Moreno as her grandmother. ?It was an incredibly insane experience,? Jackie recalled. ?Suddenly I am acting and writing, which I had never done before. Both of my parents were blown away. My mom would show up at the set in her little high heel shoes and tight outfits and say ?that is my daughter.?? Jackie enjoyed being a full-figured girl playing a character who never allowed her weight to stand in her way. ?Some people could not get over the fact that I was fat and would write terrible things about me,? Jackie said. ?When I started the show I weighed 200 pounds and when it ended I weighed 250 pounds. I just kept putting on the weight.? When the show was cancelled, Jackie continued working as an actress in film and television. She would go on to portray Jennifer Lopez? sister in the hit movie Selena and was in Picking up the Pieces with Woody Allen. ?I even took a job as a host of Your Invited on the Style Network, which was the first time I hosted.? While doing stand-up Jackie befriended fellow stand-up comic and writer Bill Torres. The two became good friends while they were both in other relationships. In 1995, they suddenly found themselves single, and their relationship developed beyond friendship. While she had found love and success, in 1997, when she was 27, Jackie?s life would change forever. Jackie?s mom, who had been an extremely active person and would not tolerate anyone sitting around watching television or wasting time, spent the afternoon shopping with Jackie for a friend who had just welcomed her first baby. ?When I picked my mom up that morning she was a bit sluggish,? Jackie said. ?I knew something was wrong. I took her to the emergency room and she was admitted immediately with a failing liver. My mom was an alcoholic. She was a highly-functioning alcoholic, which is difficult because her symptoms went undiagnosed.? After spending 15 days in a coma, Joyce Guerra died at the age of 52. Her mother?s death was a defining moment in Jackie?s life. Jackie would put on 100 pounds within the first nine months of her death. ?I was up to 285 pounds. I did a movie, Picking up the Pieces with Woody Allen a year after my mom died and I weighed 295 pounds.? Jackie realized that she needed to make some changes in her own life because her knee was causing her problems and she had limited energy. ?My life was pretty good in many areas, and I believe you get out of life what you put in.  You don?t get the life you want, but get the life you believe. I just never believed that I would ever be thin.? Jackie had considered weight loss surgery many times in her life. She even encountered singer Carnie Wilson one day before Carnie?s highly-publicized weight loss surgery and confronted her about her decision to have surgery. ?I was one of those awful judgmental people who thought [about WLS], ?What a freaky thing to do,?? Jackie recalled. ?I said, ?You would rather have your intestines altered than be like me? We are big girls who have big fun.? I was very misinformed about the subject matter. But thank goodness for organizations like ObesityHelp where there is so much more information on this subject matter.? On April 16, 2004 under the care of Dr. Philippe J. Quilici, MD, FACS, Jackie underwent gastric bypass surgery. ?Things are going really well since my surgery. People ask me all the time ?what is your goal weight?? I never had a goal weight. An actual number on the scale did not impact me, whether it said 290 or my current weight of 141. For me, it is the unexpected blessings that come from surgery?the incredible amount of energy that I have. I don?t even know what to say about it. Before surgery I drank eight diet cokes per day and six cups of coffee. My surgeon is very strict about post-op care and I have not had a bite of candy or a cookie since the surgery. I feel reborn.? How has Jackie?s career been affected by her weight change? ?You don?t make a radical life change and think it isn?t going to affect every aspect of your life,? she answered. ?You are a different person. You are new in many ways. I never played the fat roles. I could be living in a really big mansion if I had taken these kinds of roles. I deliberately chose not to do that because my whole purpose for being in this business was to portray role models. I always thought of being in this business as being able to spread powerful messages about womanhood and Latinos and people who are not a size zero and I take that very seriously. It has been really hard. When someone is offering you a million dollars to play a role, but you know what goes along with that is to be the butt of fat jokes, I would say to them, ?I am a fat girl, but I do not play one on TV.?? This is the first pilot season where Jackie will not be the big girl. ?I got a lot out of being the big girl,? she said. ?My life as a fat girl was not bad. But it also isn?t normal at age 32 to have chronic knee pain. I needed to take control. I spent my whole life like I had been sentenced to fat prison without the possibility of parole for a crime that I did not commit. Because of medical advancements, I was paroled. When I talk to people thinking about surgery I tell them how difficult my life is today with a strict diet and exercise routine. I am not going to violate the conditions of my parole and be sent back to fat prison.? In October 2005, Jackie married her best friend Bill, who she refers to as a ?complete and total fox.? Although Bill does not have weight issues, he has taken on Jackie?s new healthy lifestyle and has also cut sugar and caffeine from his diet. ?You need to accept yourself now in order to get where you want to be,? Jackie explained. ?If you do not know where you are, you can not figure out where you want to go. You have to live your life as greatly as you can right now. Life is a process and is Under Construction. Where I made the mistake in the past is I confused loving myself and celebrating myself with thinking that I don?t have to do anything to change. Being confident does not give you a free pass to avoid being better and stronger. I finally had that moment of truth and said. ?If I am honest and want to live a long and healthy life, I have to be honest about my weight.? When I put on my first pair of size-eight jeans, I collapsed and started sobbing and thought of how I wished my mom was here to see this, because this was the moment she dreamed of for so long.? Check your local bookstore for Under Construction: How I've Gained and Lost Millions of Dollars and Hundreds of Pounds by Jackie Guerra. In Under Construction, Jackie shares her own recipe for building a fulfilling life with a down-to-earth approach for making the most of your circumstances. From her humble yet stubbornly ambitious childhood as ?Mexican-American Valley Girl? to her multi-faceted career as a stand-up comic, TV star, film actress, author, jewelry designer, motivational speaker and political activist, the exuberant life of Jackie Guerra has been one of invaluable lessons and constant reinvention, including a 155 pound weight loss. ?You've got to love where you live but be open to a little home improvement!? For more information about Jackie, please visit Jackie's personal website. www.JackieGuerra.com.