E! ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL: CELEBRITY SLIMDOWNS: LOSING THE WEIGHT

E! Entertainment Special: Celebrity Slimdowns: Losing The Weight

Popular Celebrities And Top Experts Reveal The Most Fascinating Hollywood Weight Loss Journeys

Premieres January 2 At 9:00 PM ET/PT

(Los Angeles, CA, December 20, 2011) -- Yes, they're rich, famous and fabulous, but countless celebrities battle the bulge just like anyone else. E! highlights Hollywood's most successful weight loss stories as the stars themselves sit down and reveal their journey. What caused them to gain weight? What was the moment that made them want to change and, most importantly, how did they finally shed the pounds? Jordin Sparks, Ross Mathews, Jennifer "J-Woww" Farley, Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump and Kyle Massey all spill their secrets to E! Also sitting down with E! are high-profile trainers to the stars, including Ramona Braganza, who helped Jessica Alba and Halle Berry lose their baby weight, and Derek DeGrazio who trained pop-diva Britney Spears. The E! Entertainment Special: Celebrity Slimdowns: Losing The Weight premieres on January 2 at 9:00 pm ET/PT.

American Idol champion Jordin Sparks always had a positive self-image. However, when she came down with pneumonia, the songstress began thinking about her general health. She tells E!, "I was like, I'm twenty-one, I have my whole life ahead of me, I shouldn't be this sick right now. I need to make being active a priority." Her secret? She changed the way she thought about food and within four months, she said goodbye to thirty pounds.

Actress Sara Rue has dealt with weight issues since she was a young girl. "Oh, I was a chubby little girl; I got made fun of for being overweight. It sucks, high school sucks, I don't care what anyone says," she quips. Rue got herself on a diet plan and -POOF - she lost fifty pounds in eight months, just in time for her wedding.

It was the death of Ross Mathews' father that inspired him to make a change. Ross tells E!, "Watching him [his father] deteriorate, it became crystal clear to me that I have to get my act together, or I'm going to following in his footsteps." And for Jennifer "J-Woww" Farley it was the combination of a bad relationship and a constant supply of booze and pasta down at the shore that threw her "gym-rat" nature off course. "I didn't really like myself and therefore I kind of ate my sorrows in a sense."

Also spilling weight-loss secrets to E! is Ramona Braganza, who trains Halle Berry and Jessica Alba. After these two stars gave birth to their daughters, (Nahla and Honor respectively), it was Braganza who whipped them into shape. She tells E! "Jess and Halle are pretty much like everybody else. Every other woman I've ever met that's had a baby deals with the same fears and really, no one's any different. So it's a tough journey, but you can do it." Derek DeGrazio who trained Britney Spears has his own unique technique explaining, "The mirror was our scale. So there were moments, just some random weeks where we would just be working out, and you just literally see the tone in the entire body - everything - abs coming in, it was awesome."

With extreme candor, these celebrities shared their weight loss stories with E! and all appeared to have one important trait in common - they never gave up. To see their entire journey and be inspired to kick off 2012 on the right foot, be sure to tune-in on January 2 at 9:00 PM ET/PT.

About E! Entertainment

E! is television's top destination for all things entertainment and celebrity. E! is currently available to 98 million cable and satellite subscribers in the U.S. and the E! Everywhere initiative underscores the company's dedication to making E! content available on all new media platforms any time and anywhere from online to broadband video to wireless to VOD. Popular programming includes E! core franchises, "E! News," "The Soup," "Chelsea Lately," "Fashion Police" and "True Hollywood Story," as well as the network's hit series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," "Khlo

é & Lamar," "Kourtney and Kim Take New York," "Ice Loves Coco" and "Kendra." Additionally, E!'s "Live from the Red Carpet" signature events keep fans connected to their favorite stars on Hollywood's biggest nights. E! is a network of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, a division of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience.