By YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN
JUANA Change, the heavyweight anti-corruption advocate, has changed.
Huge change. From an overwhelming size of 275 lbs., she is now down to a manageable 192 lbs.
At her heaviest, Paner needed an extension of an airplane seatbelt to strap her three layers of tummy whenever she flew. She became alarmed by her own obesity and diabetic condition.
Aside from health reasons, Paner said she needed to be physical fit to “continue my advocacy with integrity.”
“How can I criticize our corrupt officials of their excesses if I cannot even look into my own?”she underscored the political aspect of her weight loss.
Coming from a fat family, Paner said losing weight was an intense struggle. “I have been dieting since I saw the light of day and onto forever,” she said.
She recalled that her initial successes in trimming down had been short-lived. That was because she said she was not mindful of her goal and she lacked commitment. She also tended “to rest on my laurels after some achievement.”
“Once I lose some significant weight, I would backslide and go back to my comfortable ways of eating, cooking and hosting dinners for friends in my home,” she said while nibbling camote (sweet potato).
In November 2009, she had a totally nude exhibit, “Pangatawanan Mo Nah,” where she gamely modeled at the University of the Philippines (UP) Vargas Museum for 36 of the country’s prominent painters, photographers, and sculptors like Kiri Dalena, Justiniani, Julie Lluch, At Maculangan, Jim Paredes, Neal Oshima, Nap Jamir, Kawayan de Guia, Brenda Fajardo, and Wyg Tysmans.
Her first publicized attempt to lose weight was during the 2010 elections, dubbed “365 Days of Change” monitored by The Probe Team hosted by Cheche Lazaro. The rationale of the show was, “As we in Movement for Good Governance challenged the Filipino people to go for the big change and get rid of the excesses in our government, I also challenged myself to get rid of my own excesses. I proclaimed and challenged myself to lose 100 lbs. in 365 days.”
She lost four pounds in one year.
She didn’t give up. Now, after almost a year of more consistent exercise and diet, the change is obvious.
Supervised by personal trainer Dan Lising, a movie stuntman, Paner’s exercise regimen consists of daily jogging, usually at the Ayala Triangle for 20 to 30 minutes followed by light weight exercises, boxing and muay thai.
Sunday mornings, she joins the public community dancing at the Mall of Asia grounds,
grooving and sweating it out and then donating P20 to the dance instructor. Greens are the staple of her diet. She eats half a cup to one cup of rice (usually brown rice) with her no-pork, no-beef meal.
She aims to lose 17 lbs more to hug 175 lbs by her 50th birthday on May 24. “I juana be fab@50,” she said naughtily.
In “Juana C The Movie,” which opens in theaters on May 29, Paner plays the role of an Arrrneow university coed from the province. Too poor to afford the tuition, she goes to the underworld and messes up with the unspeakables from the three branches of government via sex scandals.
The repackaged, impishly sexy Juana knows that as her surname Change implies, transformation is constant. So, she may still be around for as long as she can keep the momentum she has started.
Behind the hard-hitting Juana Change character, there’s a soft side to Paner, which is consistent to her devotion to the underprivileged. She sends some tykes to school. She and her writer-collaborator friend Rody Vera are proud to have sent to school a grown-up Loboc choir member, Noel Kerr Canedo, who will earn his Conducting degree from the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music at the end of this school year.
Full of love for what she does, Paner is willing to fade away when she feels that her advocacies are no longer relevant. When that time comes, she intends to focus her creative energies on her dream project—managing her own bed and breakfast.
Meanwhile, vamos a cambiar con Juana Change!