Posted by Cochise on December 24, 2008 at 10:02:53:
In Reply to: Re: Kirchmeyer & Associates, I smell a Skunk!, AI, MAI, SRA posted by Cochise on December 23, 2008 at 16:27:18:
Oprah falls off the fat wagon
—Nara Schoenberg, Chicago Tribune reporter
December 10, 2008
She can make a serious novel a best seller, find a great gift for less than $100 and help elect a U.S. president. But losing weight and keeping it off? That's a tough one.
Even for Oprah Winfrey.
The talk show queen now weighs 200 pounds, up from 160 in 2006, according to an article in the January issue of O magazine provided early to The Associated Press by Harpo Productions.
"I'm mad at myself," Winfrey writes in the article. "I'm embarrassed. I can't believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I'm still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, 'How did I let this happen again?' "
Oprah's mea culpa comes at a time when a growing number of books, including "Rethinking Thin" by journalist Gina Kolata, argue that diet-induced weight loss is extremely difficult to sustain long-term.
"No matter what the diet and how hard they try, most people will not be able to lose a lot of weight and keep it off," writes Kolata.
In the fatosphere, the growing community of fat-rights activists on the Web, some bloggers have criticized Oprah for promoting the idea that diets work long-term.
The O article includes echoes of the pro-diet Oprah, who famously exhibited a wagon loaded with fat on her talk show when she lost 67 pounds in 1988.
She admits to now feeling like a "fat cow," and she details her struggles with an out-of-balance thyroid, explaining how the condition led to "a fear of working out."
But Winfrey has acknowledged that the fat wagon weight loss was achieved with extreme measures, including a liquid protein diet: "I had literally starved myself for four months," she said in 2005.
And there are signs in the O article that Winfrey, ever attuned to the direction of culture and society, may be taking a new approach to her weight. In the article, she writes that "thin" is no longer her goal—she now wants to be strong, healthy and fit.
The better to select books, gifts and presidents, we assume.