Soleil Moon Frye is feeling pretty good about herself these days.

The former Punky Brewster star has gone from covering up at the beach to strutting her stuff in a bikini.

Soleil Moon Frye, who is mother to three children, said her husband also is rather happy with the results of her 40-pound weight loss thanks to Nutrisystem.

“My husband said to me, ‘You’re the girl who always wears surfer shorts and rash guards [on the beach], so I didn’t even know what you looked like in a bathing suit until now!'” Frye told People magazine.

After giving birth to her third child, son Lyric, last February, Soleil Moon Frye decided it was time to get into shape, but it wasn’t as easy as she hoped it would be.

Been years since I’ve worn a bikini! 40 lbs down & feeling better than ever. Thanks, @Nutrisystem! #ad #myhatstory pic.twitter.com/qYZ0uF0i29

— soleil moon frye (@moonfrye) April 2, 2015

“I had the baby, and I was waiting for it to start coming off,” said Frye, who is also mother to daughters Poet, nine, and Jagger, seven. “The frustrating thing for me was that one day I would lose a pound, but the next day I’d be back up two pounds. I needed help kicking it into gear.”

Soleil Moon Frye is like many women who struggle to drop the baby weight. At one point, things came to a point of no return “when Lyric was four months old, four people in one week asked me when I was expecting.”

Enough was enough, so Frye listened to a friend who told her about Nutrisystem in May 2014, and everything has changed since she began the program.

Soleil Moon Frye shows off dramatic weight loss: http://t.co/Qe8I5kwkVR pic.twitter.com/uHjZvTzLX1

— AOL.com (@AOL) April 2, 2015

“I haven’t felt deprived at all,” she says of the program. “It has something for every one of my cravings. And it’s just about making smart choices. I don’t want to go on a crash diet. I want to sustain this. I needed something that I could actually do and stay healthy.”

Frye said the weight loss was not just about her feelings.

“I really want my girls to have a healthy image to look to,” she said. “I don’t want to be the mom that’s like, ‘I can’t have any ice cream.’ So the girls eat their ice cream sandwiches and I eat my Nutrisystem ice cream sandwiches. It’s been fun!”

The actress said the best thing is slipping back into clothes that she loves.

“I have these really great rock and roll leather pants,” she said. “I put them on and it was amazing!”

“For me, I just want to feel great. But carrying the extra pounds started to weigh me down –- literally. I want to encourage moms to feel good about themselves.” said Soleil Moon Frye. “I think it’s important to empower ourselves. We have kids and we love our kids. But we still have ourselves. And I want to feel like the best version of myself.”