DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Dore Weber smiles after her remake for Fox's reality show "The Swan" where women undergo plastic surgery and exercise to remake themselves.

A 41-year-old Aiea grad sheds
40 pounds in a makeover that
shocks her husband

Dore Weber was "shocked" when she first saw herself naked in a mirror after 12 isolated weeks of what she calls "makeover basic training."

Her transformation for the Fox Television scalpel-happy show "The Swan" included tens of thousands of dollars of plastic surgery, dental work, a personal nutritionist, trainer and therapist, and little contact with friends and family.

All the shiny surfaces in her Venice, Calif. apartment where she was sequestered were dulled to prevent her from seeing even the slightest reflection.

"I was alone and I was so nervous," says Weber, 41, from her father's Aiea home. "I took off my clothes and walked to this mirror. So much of my well-being, self-esteem, was going to be determined with what I saw in that mirror."

Weber nervously raised her head, first looking at her feet, then legs, hips, breasts and face. She remembers smiling.

"It looked like me, it was me, but I was shocked by how much weight I'd lost," Weber said. "I looked almost anorexic. I freaked because it had been 10 years since I had even come close to looking so much better, or more like the real me.

"I was sooo relieved."

The Aiea High School graduate, who now lives in Las Vegas with her general contractor husband, Kurt, is one of 16 women competing on the makeover reality show now in its second season and airing Monday nights.

In each episode, "The Swan" takes two average-looking women, isolates them from the outside world for 90 days as they undergo extensive cosmetic surgery, fitness and diet training and "life coaching," then shows them what their new selves look like.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Dore Weber is with her husband, Kurt Weber, and her father, Herman Fergerstrom, at Fergerstrom's home in Aiea. Dore is 5 feet 6 inches tall and went from a size 14 to a size 4.

Sixteen women compete for a place in the Swan Pageant, but only nine will make it. Eight finalists will be selected in advance of the pageant, and the ninth, the wild card, will be revealed on the season finale. The pageant winner is crowned "The Swan" and wins hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes.

In tonight's show, filmed in early November, Weber competes against 27-year-old Amy W., a blond single mother and waitress from Houston. Either Amy or Weber will be sent packing. This year's finale pageant airs next Monday.

Weber, whose "Swan" contract prevents her from discussing whose swan song it is tonight, seems like a sensible, intelligent woman, so why would she seek the highest rank in Swan-dom?

"At the time I started watching 'The Swan,' my husband and I had been trying to have kids for 10 years and pretty much given up," Weber said. "I had gained more than 50 pounds through the fertility process and looked awful."

Her weight peaked at 185 pounds on a 5-foot-6 frame. Weber eventually did get pregnant but lost the baby.

"I had gained so much weight that I just didn't care anymore, so I ate," she said. "I was very depressed."

What Weber Had Done » Lasik surgery to correct her eyesight » A brow lift on her eyelids » Rhinoplasty (nose) » Chin implant » Dental work » Liposuction (six pounds) » Breast augmentation

After her doctors said her body needed a break from the fertility program, the size-14 Weber decided to download a contestant application from "The Swan" Web site.

"I kept the application a month without filling it out but thought about it a lot," she said. "I sort of jokingly told my husband about applying, and he said 'OK, but they'll never pick you.'"

A month after producers received Weber's application, video and photos in June, she was selected. When they did, Kurt was not happy to find out the show was going to sequester his wife for three months.

The contestants are paid $500 a week during the three months, and she was allowed to speak to her husband by telephone for 10 minutes twice a week.

"I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I'd spent four years in the Army after enlisting at 30. So I tackled it like I did basic training," she said.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Dore Weber shows her before and after photos after her "remake" for Fox's reality show "The Swan." She is from Aiea but now lives in Las Vegas.

Weber weighed 170 pounds on arrival. She dropped 17 pounds in two weeks and another 40 by the end of filming.

"I was in my military mode," Weber said.

The most painful transformation for Weber was cutting her waist-length hair, which hadn't been even trimmed since 1988.

"I cried," she said. "I wanted to keep my Hawaiian hair and just style it."

Weber said she doesn't know how she'll be portrayed on tonight's episode, but she feels she wasn't emotional enough to create the drama producers wanted. But that's OK, she said.

Husband Kurt's reaction to his wife's voluptuous transformation was a bit unexpected.

"He was happy for me but a bit disappointed because he said he liked me the way I was," she said. "He said it's a little strange to look at me now because I'm not the woman he married."