Things will be a little lighter on the forthcoming season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but it won’t be the drama! Instead, it’ll be Jennifer Aydin‘s weight! The 42-year-old mom realized after her first season on the show that she didn’t look as good on TV as she wanted to, so she decided to get proactive about the situation before filming began for Season 10. “When I envisioned how I looked, that’s not how I saw myself,” Jennifer told HollywoodLife in an EXCLUSIVE interview. “I saw myself on camera and on the big screen and I’m like, ‘That’s what people see?’ No, no, no. That doesn’t resonate well with me. I can do better than that. And that’s really what it came down to.”
Jennifer, whose husband Bill is a plastic surgeon, performed his first surgery on his wife right after she filmed Season 9’s reunion — a breast reduction followed by liposuction on her back, which took off about 4 pounds. Once she saw the results of her slimmer figure, she was hooked. But it was good friend and co-star Teresa Giudice, 47, and her daughter Milania Giudice, 14, who really inspired her to get on a diet and fitness regimen to lose the rest of those pesky pounds. “I saw Milania on Teresa’s Instagram, how amazing she looked and they were exercising and my first reaction was, ‘How did Milania lose all that weight?'” Jennifer said, noting she also now hits the gym about 3 times a week. “[Teresa] recommended a nutritionist [at Absolute Nutrition Counseling] that she saw and a chef that prepares her meals — Basically a Keto-based diet. It’s organic, gluten-free and it’s not frozen meals. These are freshly prepared meals that I would get delivered twice a week, like egg salad with spinach and artichoke and then salmon also with like zucchini noodles and, you know, ground beef, but, basically, there’s veggies and protein and if I did have any kind of — Let’s say breakfast muffin in the morning, it was made with almond flour and almond meal. And from that I lost 10 pounds. So all in all, I’m down 15 pounds from last season.”
Now down from a size 10 to a size 6, Jennifer has her sights set on losing a little bit more in time for a special family event — and maybe the highly-anticipated season 10 premiere! “I’m really happy, but I’m actually on a mission to lose 10 more pounds before my brother’s wedding,” Jennifer said, noting that she will then have completed her weight loss journey. “I’m just going to try to maintain it.”
We think Jennifer looks absolutely amazing and it’s so great to know that the Giudices helped inspire her to put her health first!