Jamie: Girl, how did you lose all that weight?
Vanessa: I go to this woman who tells you what you need. What herbs you need.
Jamie: You're kidding me?
Vanessa: Yeah, she's really great. She's Sally Kravich. My mom's doing it, too. I've cut out wheat, I cut out caffeine, I cut out dairy.
Jamie: What do you eat for fun?
Vanessa: What's the fun? The fun is wheat-free foods. There's a lot of pastas I do—wheat-free pasta. I don't eat regular pasta anymore. I don't do potatoes, chicken or fish. [At this point, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes up to where Jamie and Vanessa are talking.] Jamie, this is Arnold. Arnold, Jamie Brown.
Arnold: Hi.
Jamie: Hi.
Arnold: How are you?
Jamie: Terminator! I met you at the Special Olympics.
Arnold: What's wrong with that?
Jamie: Nothing. It was too funny... [After more chit chat, Jamie and Vanessa continue.]
Vanessa: I ran into this woman, Sally Kravich. My psychic actually told me about her, in October. It's been about four months that I've been off wheat, which basically means no white flour. So, no bread, unless it's with oat flour as opposed to white flour. It's a change of life, but once you're used to it and you see the results, and you also feel better, it's like a cleansing.
Jamie: Well, how much weight have you lost?
Vanessa: About 14 pounds. I feel so fabulous! You know, I can say "Thank you!"
Jamie: So tell me about the psychic.
Vanessa: Maria? Maria Papapetros? She's out of New York and I've been seeing her for three years now. She predicted Devin. She said [I'd have] one, maybe two [boys], but definitely one's coming. So I knew when I got pregnant.
Jamie: What made you go to a psychic?
Vanessa: I did this interview with this girl who was relating to my records. This sister. And she was talking about how she had just done this piece on Maria and she consults with a lot of movie studios. So she's big time.
Jamie: You weren't afraid to go to a psychic?
Vanessa: No.
Jamie: You know when I had Jackie Stallone doing a psychic column for awhile, a couple of people said, "Jamie, that's the devil's work." I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
Vanessa: I think it's the opposite. I think people are blessed to have a special channel. You know, to be aware and to be in tune with their psychic abilities. That's a God-given gift, you know? And the only way you can excel as a psychic is to embrace God and acknowledge and thank him for the power. And particularly with Maria, she's done psychic awareness workshops. I did one with her, which was really spiritual. It was about meditation; it was about praying every day about self-realization and awareness and it wasn't creepy at all. It was very, very spiritual and very positive. So, I'm sure there're swindlers out there...a lot of bad people who have given psychics a battering.
Jamie: Is she expensive?
Vanessa: She's about $150.
Jamie: An hour? You're with her for an hour?
Vanessa: Uh huh.
Jamie: So Maria turned you on to Sally?
Vanessa: Right.
Jamie: And then Sally, what does she do?
Vanessa: She comes and she does like an hour and a half and she goes over why you should be eating this and why you shouldn't be eating this. For instance, wheat--if you put white flour in water, you make a paste. That's coating your colon and your body can't absorb any nutrients if you keep adding wheat in your body because your body can't digest it. You think you're having a good healthy day of having a bagel in the morning, a sandwich in the afternoon and some pasta. But you have totally gone overboard on the wheat and your colon is being backed up with all this paste that can't breakdown anything and you're not getting any nutrients. So, basically your body is starving for nutrients. She looks in your eye. She takes a flashlight and looks in your eye, right and left, and says, "Oh your lungs have a lot of mucus, we need to work on that. Oh, I see your liver needs to be cleansed." She sees all that. She can see past injuries in your eyes. It's amazing. You know, "Oh your left shoulder, does it ache?" Yeah. "Did you have a breakdown of calcium?" And, you know, Jamie, I've had that since seventh grade. So, yes, it's amazing. And then she will take the vitamins that you need, or the herbs, and she'll make you hold them against your body. She'll do like a stress test to see if your body needs it or if your body's weak with it or strong with it. And that's how she determines what she needs. So, it's a little cosmic, you know.