No doubt Scarlett Pomers‘s life is much sweeter compared to two years ago, when the former Reba actress checked into rehab for anorexia. Weighing only 73 lbs., the 5’2″ Pomers underwent two months of inpatient treatment.
“It was a nightmare,” she says. “I was away from my family, my home, my work. I just went, ‘This isn’t worth it. I have to get better.’”
Now, with the continued guidance of a therapist, Pomers, 18, has come to accept that it’s okay to satisfy her body’s cravings (“Chocolate cake is the bomb!” she says) and has learned to work out in a healthy way as a devoted student of Kundalini yoga.
Pomers also steers clear of the scale. “I don’t weigh myself anymore,” Pomers says. Adds her mother, Michelle: “She said to me one time, ‘I am not a number.’ That made me very proud.” Post-treatment, “one of the most important things is having a support system,” says Pomers, who leans on pals she met during treatment, as well as her family.
She also draws strength from her practice of Kundalini yoga, which emphasizes meditation and chanting, and which she discovered after reading a book about Golden Bridge studio director Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa.
After popping in for an introductory class in June 2006, “I kept going back and felt stronger and stronger every time,” says Pomers, who attends up to four classes a week and has earned her teaching certificate in the practice. “Yoga always made me feel really good about myself. It was the final step of letting go of the demon.”
Now she hopes to help others do the same. Last winter Pomers launched the nonprofit foundation Arch-Angels, which benefits the educational efforts of the National Eating Disorders Association. “The more people talk about eating disorders,” she explains, “the more people get the real story about what they’re like.”
Including just how hard they are to come back from. Regaining her self-confidence remains “an ongoing process,” admits Pomers, who is performing on the L.A. music circuit and working on her first solo album this summer before she starts filming the slasher movie The Kentucky Fried Horror Show in the fall.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say I don’t worry about my looks or my weight. Some days I feel I have come so far. Other days, I hate the way I look. But I’m at a place where I’m really happy. I have a great family and great friends.”
Not to mention a great new asset. “She loves her J.Lo booty!” her mom says. “She has a ba-donk-a-donk.” “I have a mini J.Lo,” Pomers says, “and I do like it!” [via]