Oh yeah, I know of what Oprah Winfrey speaks…fat is of what she speaks. In the fat 80s when I was headed for Plus Size, I signed on for a Winfrey endorsed product “Opti-Fast.” Or was it Medi-Fast, whatever, it was FAST. In three months (how times flies when you’re having fun), I dropped 30 pounds. The doctor dispensing the magic powder told me “you don’t need to shed any more weight, In fact, I’m taking you off the stuff.” It’s my recollection that the program to rid oneself of fat, closed not long after that.
The promise of glory came in the form of a powder, to be sprinkled or stirred or maybe shaken like a martini (no fair cheating) and each victim got four or five miserable ounces. Eat your heart out. If all you get amounts to 800 calories each day, even a skeleton would slim down. How I yearned for a big sloppy glob of something, anything I could chew on would do. I missed chewing stuff. Yes, at the end of the program, I was thinner by far. Oprah was much thinner too.
Temporarily. I watched her weight rise and fall over the decades. Winced when I saw her jogging her way to slim; cringed when she made yet another confessional that “this time she would keep it off.”
Why doesn’t she just forget skinny and eat what she wants to eat? Lots of fat people are happy. Oh yeah, I know It’s not healthy to be FAT. Fat doctors everywhere will tell you that. I had a physician warn me to never buy slacks with expandable waistbands (Plus Sizes), and to always avoid the aisles featuring (gulp! Twinkies and pies by the dozen, cakes by the crate, etc. You get the idea).
So here we go into a new year and Oprah has signed on for the Weight Watchers program. Today during a television ad, she admitted her struggles to overcome a spreading amount of flesh, were, well, struggles with only temporary results. It doesn’t hurt to mention that she recently also signed on a board member for the Weight Watchers Empire. Celebrities get fat and gee whiz bang, lots of them sign on to weight loss programs. People make wild promises as they enter each New Year. Oprah more or less urged us to come along on her latest fat journey. I wish her much success. Do these slacks make me look fat?
Frankly though, you’d think that someone with her huge billions could hire several persons to supervise her every move toward calories galore. Someone to slap her hand, tape her mouth shut, etc. I’m pretty sure she must have a personal chef or two. But a personal chef doesn’t hang around and police those midnight raids on the frig. Oprah is so wealthy, she can eat whatever she desires and apparently she’s done some serious desiring. Liz Taylor had a similar problem. I mean if you live in California and can order huge amounts of cheesecake delivered to you from a New York deli, and if you have so much money that you can easily afford a wardrobe that encompasses multiple sizes, well, it must be hell trying to shed the first 10 pounds.
I gained every ounce I lost back in the day, and basically I’ve been shedding the same 20 over and over. By the time the Opti-Fast torture ended, I was ravenous for a chicken leg, a chicken neck, a whole chicken! The pitch was to start eating very small portions slowly, slowly, slowly. The first juicy bite I bit into and CHEWED, I was off and running. Pass the pie please.
A decade ago I noticed Oprah Winfrey sitting in the lobby of my Milwaukee Condo. She was reading a book (How to Lose Weight?), while surrounded by gorgeous Louis Vuitton luggage, 10 pieces at least. Her mother lived in the building, and Oprah had arrived from Chicago to sweep her away to some exotic location. Oprah was trim in her tweed suit and serious glasses. I wonder if she was hungry. Heh,heh.
Whatever, I wish her well as I roll over into 2016 and a year of avoiding my bathroom scale….Here’s to a good life with good friends who don’t care if my backside has spread a tad…
Oh by the way, do these spandex pants make me look fat?
I guess I should mention that my mom, never fat, but always trying to be thinner, ate little caramel squares known as AYDS. Taken with a big glass of water before each meal, they made my physician dad laugh like crazy. ‘Gretchen,” he chortled, “those things won’t help you lose weight. It’s the water that fills you, not the AYDS.” She also worked out with Jack LaLanne, an exercise freak who ended up selling monster juicers. He died juicing…
In my suburban housewife days, I joined Fair Lady. I purchased a black exercise thingy to wear along with black panty hose, and dutifully, I drove each day to the Fair Lady Spa near Mayfair. It was pretty swell trying to do what Jane Fonda was doing and I did feel better, especially after sitting quietly in the steam room, thinking about a hot fudge sundae. Eventually I gave it up and gained back the pounds inch by inch.
Hey, you never did answer me! Do these slacks make me look FAT? I’m thinking of joining the Y.
Photo courtesy www.free1.cz Added note: the woman in the photo is on a wooden treadmill. I believe Mike Paul in Kewaskum has one.