Love her or loathe her (though why would you but from jealousy!), you have to hand it to Oprah — she’s got courage! I mean after the years and years of yo-yoing up and down the scales, I think we all, including Oprah herself, had thought her battle with the bulge was behind her. I certainly did. And yet, there she was last week acknowledging to the world that she’s still, at age 50-something, struggling with weight. Having put on a few extra pounds myself over the festive season, I can only imagine how unjoyous it was for Oprah to realize she’d put on 40 odd pounds over the last year or so. Nope. Definitely one of life’s more joy-sucking experiences!
And I should know! Many years ago I had my own battle, and relapse, with the eating disorder bulimia.
I remember how humiliating and humbling it was to realize that I wasn’t cured as I had declared myself to be years earlier. Rather, that at 26 (which I thought at the time was far too old to be still carrying childhood baggage. Huh, how little I knew!) , I was heading backwards when it came to “having my shit together” in the eating department. Which is why I admire Oprah so much. At least I didn’t have to eat humble pie in front of a few hundred million people and have my girth discussed on the front page of every tabloid in the western world.
As Oprah wrote herself in one of her columns from O Magazine in 2007,
“For most of us who overeat, the extra pounds correspond to unresolved anxieties, frustrations and depressions which all come down to fear we haven’t worked through. Conquer the fear and you’ll fly.”
So Oprah, for all its worth, I applaud you. You are, and always have been (in my humble opinion), the poster child for taking personal responsibility and owning your “stuff.” You haven’t blamed it on hormonal imbalances. You haven’t pointed the finger at your chef for indulging you or your personal trainer for under-sweating you. Nope, you’ve had the guts to step up to the plate, the humility to own your problem square on and I have not one ounce of doubt that you will now have the determination to succeed in working off those extra pounds that stand between you and the fit and sexy Oprah you truly want to be.
Whatever your weight, I think you’re gorgeous! (call me a suck up but it’s true!)
And what about you dear reader, male or female, fat or thin or somewhere in between? What problems, and the underlying fears that feed them, do you have that you aren’t owning up to? What long-held self doubts are keeping you from being your best? And how might your life be a whole lot better if you looked at your fears, your doubts, your baggage square in the face rather than escape from in food, or shopping or excuses you know are merely that?
I cannot recommend highly enough to take a leaf out of Oprah’s book and let go your pride and call on your courage. There’s never been a better time than now to acknowledge what is not working in your life, to own what you are afraid of, and to step up to the plate and say “Enough!”
You can’t fix what you don’t own. So if not now, then when? Just keep in mind, delay is increasingly expensive!
Margie, I thoroughly enjoy reading your blogs and certainly your one on the Gaza issue was very brave and timely.
However, I just can’t see eye to eye on the whole Oprah weight issue. I might say now, that I generally do like Oprah and this is in now way an ‘anti Oprah rant’.
But come on! Yes, she has put on weight , yes it’s great that she is wanting to do something about it , but who really cares. She is the envy of millions of woman around the globe. She has money, fame, success etc but oh dear she has put on 40 pounds and we all stop and feel sorry for her. Boo hoo. I would love to be in her position and have full time chefs cooking delicious low calorie meals anytime of the day and have several personal trainers to help me pump weights and lead me in palates, but I simply don’t.
We get all too easily distracted by the lives of the rich and famous, when quite frankly there are far more important (and interesting) issues out there than hearing about the dilemma of an overweight talk show host.
Keep the blogs coming Margie, I really do enjoy them!
Catherine K
Thanks Cath. I can’t disagree with you on the fact that Oprah has a lot more support and resources at her disposal to help her look good and stay looking good than most women. But that is precisely the point. It doesn’t matter how wealthy we are or whether or not we can afford a personal trainer and private chef, until we deal with the internal issues that drive us to emotional eating, we will not be able to enjoy the sense of physical and spiritual wellbeing we aspire to.
It would be great to think that by fifty we didn’t have any more inner work to do. But as Oprah would likely say, working through the baggage accumulated in one’s childhood can be a lifetime endeavor. The journey to true personal freedom and fulfillment and acceptance never ends.
I don’t think anyone is asking us to feel sorry for her. I sure don’t. But I certainly feel compassion for her because I know, from my own experience, that yoyoing up and down the scales is absolutely no fun. And having to acknowledge to ourselves, and then to those who know us (in Oprahs case, a few billion people) that we still don’t have it together is also not something to relish. But she’s done it anyway, without pointing fingers or making excuses, and so I have to hand it to her for owning that she, and she alone, is responsible for her circumstances in life… and that, of course, extends to her extraordinary success against pretty huge odds!
Thanks again Catherine… and keep you comments coming!