Bob Greene on How He Met Oprah

There is a good interview with Bob Greene on Bankrate. He tells the story of how he first met Oprah in 1992 when she weighed 237 pounds. At that time he didn't have a TV and he barely knew who she was. They hiked together at a spa resort that day and have been great friends ever since.

Fitness guru Bob Greene is the kind of guy who was reading nutritional magazines when he was a young kid. He remembers saying to his parents that they shouldn't be eating bacon for breakfast back when he was nine years old.

Bankrate asks him if Oprah is typical in her battle of the bulge. Greene replies;

I think she's typical of a fairly large majority of women and men whose major coping mechanism is food. When they're happy, they want to celebrate with food; when they're sad or feel a void in their life, food really fills it. They don't mistreat people. Everyone has coping mechanisms. You either mistreat people, you abuse alcohol or drugs or you overwork. We all have our thing that gets us past stressful moments, and hers is most definitely food. I think it is for a majority of people. It's the most socially acceptable.

Oprah Lost 30 Pounds?

In Touch Weekly has Oprah on their cover this week and the caption reads "WOW! Oprah lost 30 pounds!" In the meantime, Life & Style Weekly said last week that she's lost 15 pounds! So what is the truth here? At any rate Oprah does look slimmer these days. Though whether she's sticking to a sub 1,000 calorie diet and exercising daily are debatable. Here's what some people had to say about Oprah's weight loss at the Skinny Website;

Oprah goes up and down in her weight so often that you will never really know what it is that she is doing. Like the last time that she lost a ton of weight and it was this huge deal, and it was “for good”. I remember hearing on more than one occasion that she didn’t even have a piece of her own birthday cake at that huge 50th birthday pary that she threw for herself. What happened next? She went on vacation and ballooned again. I have a very hard time believing that even if she is eating that way, it will be for any lengthy period of time.

Her body looks very fit and glam, but her face is looking elder…Maybe becouse of the yo-yo dieting. I hope she’s not going too far! Skinny isn’t a synonyme for beautiful.

sadly, i am not convinced that this weightloss is going to last. with that diet, barely over 1000 calories, she’s setting herself up for an intense face-stuffing fest. i admire that she lost the weight, but there’s only so much time before your body cannot handle that sort of deprivation.

That can’t be heatlhy… I ate more than that even when I was severely anorexic. And def. not sustainable. I bet her body will force her back into over-eating to make up for starving herself.

she’s starving herself. a woman her size should not be eating less than 1400 cals a day. no way can she sustain it. f’cking up her metabolism even more than it already is from her past diet failures. i don’t understand why somebody with her kind of money doesnt have people cooking and weight training with her constantly. sheesh… if i could afford to have my meals prepared i’d be eating the finest seafood, fish and lean meats and i’d have a hot personal trainer working me out every day. poor Oprah. she must not have time to do anything but starve herself. her diet sounds nasty. i rather have a cup of coffee and a cigarette than the slop she’s eating. her face looks bad. SEND IN THE BOTOX!

See here for more on Oprah's weight loss experiments over the years.