!["I weigh myself every morning. If I don't, before you know it, I'll be up 10 lbs."](http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/7f/ff/1357222236_8380_Untitled.jpg?itok=7NW7YlN- ""I weigh myself every morning. If I don't, before you know it, I'll be up 10 lbs."")
Actress Jennie Garth is healthier and happier than she has been in years after having lost 30 pounds in six months.
Garth, who shed the weight by eating less and working out five days a week, says vigilance is key to staying slim.
"I weigh myself every morning," Jennie told the February 2013 issue of Health. "If I don't, before you know it, I'll be up 10 pounds. It creeps. This morning, it was up two pounds. That's OK. But if it's up six pounds, I need to make adjustments."
Garth, whose stay-skinny secret is portion control, slams the ineffective, unhealthy fad diets she tried in the past to lose weight.
"My biggest regret is putting my body through fad diets: Atkins, cleanses, the hCG diet," says Jennie, 40. "I lost 18 pounds, but it came right back. The worst was fasting with colonics for three or four days. It was the most horrifying experience ever!"
Garth is doing better these days after splitting from her husband of 11 years, actor Peter Facinelli, with whom she has three daughters: Luca, 15; Lola, 10; and Fiona, 6. The couple called it quits in 2012. Shortly afterward, Jennie lost weight, got healthy, and tried to recover emotionally.
"Now I feel stronger and more confident in my body," says Jennie, who says her fitness regimen keeps her mentally focused and strong.
"Every day, I just renew my healthy choices," says Garth, whose workouts include plyometrics, kickboxing and hiking. "I feel really good about myself now, and I don't want to do anything to change that.
"I'm learning to date again, [and] looks aren't important to me anymore. I like positive energy."
The most important thing Jennie learned from her pending divorce is the importance of maintaining a proper perspective on negative events and emotions.
"When I'm in excruciating pain, like with what I've been through with my breakup and that grief and loss that's just immobilizing, it helps to remember that it only lasts for 13 to 15 minutes, max," she says. "And then it's over.
"Your mind is ready to go to something else. You might come back to it, but it helps to just know that that pain is not going to last forever."
