I don’t think people should be made fun of for having a weight or eating problem. However, since Oprah has set herself up as an authority on the subject of weight loss, and has pushed her stable of "experts" on us, she needs to be called out.
The ever yo-yo dieting Oprah is on an upswing these days, as her weight is reported to be upwards of 195 pounds, which means she’s gained about 60 pounds over the past year or so. For anybody — especially a middle-aged person — this kind of rapid weight gain can be very dangerous and is certainly unhealthy.
I want to make it clear that while I do blame Oprah for her predicament, I am not looking to belittle her. But we’ll get to Oprah in a minute. First I want to focus attention on some of the people who supposedly have helped Oprah lose weight over the years, and as a result are now making a very good living selling stuff to the masses.
Let’s look at one of Oprah’s diet gurus Bob Greene. Greene has written a series of successful — but vapid — diet and exercise books that use the catch phrase, “Get With The Program.” Bob is out there telling people how to eat — and has continued to appear on Winfrey’s show over the years — and all the while his prime client is blowing up. How can Oprah or Greene be trusted?
Plain and simple, the validity of a celebrity fitness/nutrition program can’t be based on the stories of anecdotal success that come from the masses, but MUST be judged strictly with regards to the celebrity’s success with the program. This may sound harsh, but that doesn’t make it any less true. An endorsement from a celebrity like Oprah can make a person’s career and can make them rich. But the product or service has to be bona fide, and the client-celebrity has to live up to their endorsement. Revlon uses Halle Berry’s face in their advertisements – and not mine – for a very good reason.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Lisa McKay
Great article, Sal. So let me ask you a question -- is there anything that works better than the 'eat less, move more' program? I've always assumed that if you expend more calories than you take in over time, you'll lose weight, and that should work regardless of what type of calories you consume. The one thing that's pretty obvious is that if there was one plan that really, truly worked, there'd only be one plan.
2 - JELIELÂł
Hey Sal, nice to see we have a fitness guru. Can you point me to a graphical training guide online or deadtree for those training with free weights only? I use a barbell and 2 dumbbells (with many disks). It's all got and have space for. TIA for any help you can provide me/us
3 - sal m
"eat less and move more" about sums it up...the problem is that in the rush to make money too many people have needlessly confused the issue of nutrition. oprah's gurus are as guilty of this as anyone.
i always have said that if someone is drowning, you grab them by the neck and yank them out of the water. you don't ask them why they can't swim or why they are in the water.
these diet gurus have come up with all of these theories and plans that have nothing to do with getting to the heart of the issue, which is "eat less and move more."
there's very little money to be made by telling people to "eat less and move more," but as we all now know there's a ton of money to be made by demonizing certain types of calories and by coming up with all kinds of crazy nutritional schemes.
a big part of the problem is a lack of personal responsibility. too many people have gotten too lazy and they are unwilling to make the necessary - and not too difficult - changes in their lives.
4 - Lem
Truth to power, the empress bore no clothe.
5 - sal m
i don't know of any online training guides off hand, but check out the link to pavel tsatsouline's very good book "power to the people." once you get past the hardcore pretense you'll find a effective and efficient way to train. pavel is also a proponent of russian kettlebell training, which i highly recommend as well.
6 - JELIELÂł
i always have said that if someone is drowning, you grab them by the neck and yank them out of the water. you don't ask them why they can't swim or why they are in the water.
The Buddha teaches this very same lesson but with a man struck with an arrow. Just pull the arow.
I looked at the book at Amazon, pretty nifty.
7 - sal m
i never knew that about buddha...that's pretty cool...
all of these diet gurus are guilty of ignoring my words AND the words of the great buddha!
8 - Nancy
All diets are gimmicks, that's a given. Especially if they've got someone's name on them. Then you can be sure the only person benefitting from that diet is the 'designer', be it the late Dr. Atkins, Oprah, or whomever.
Unfortunately, even 'eat less move more' doesn't work, after a point. Something goes wrong with the ol' mechanism, & you end up gaining weight breathing air. I've seen it. This is why so many people lose weight, only to gain it back and then some, every single time. And there's always the 'and then some', which is the real killer. Something about dropping weight prompts the body to adjust so that future weight gain is harder to lose, and is magnified to add at least +/- 5%. It's obviously a pleistocene survival tactic, but unfortunately it's still with us.
9 - sal m
nancy wrote:
"Unfortunately, even 'eat less move more' doesn't work, after a point. Something goes wrong with the ol' mechanism, & you end up gaining weight breathing air. I've seen it. This is why so many people lose weight, only to gain it back and then some, every single time."
this is known as the yo-yo dieters syndrome...on which i'll write more about in the near future.
however, people who eat too little and lose too much weight too quickly lose a lot of muscle along with some fat. muscle is the mechanism through which the body burns calories and by losing muscle, people minimize their ability to burn calories.
what happens when a person crashes and puts back on the weight that they have lost - quickly - they put on more fat and not muscle. repeated bouts of this situation mess up a person's metabolism and results in nancy's above scenario. less survival tactic and more "user error."
people who eat less to lose weight, way too frequently eat a lot less than they should. in the short term deprivation is hard enough, and in the long term is impossible. but these short term errors build up over time and result in long term consequences.
10 - Nancy
Sal, then how does this latest thing with keeping rats on literal starvation-calorie diets work? Are they just measuring how long they live, kept on starvation levels, or do they ever let them eat "normally" & see how fast they gain/regain the weight? I'll bet they'd all blow up like balloons!
11 - sal m
i'm not familiar with this...but what i will say is that when it comes to these kinds of studies, i don't feel that they are applicable to the human condition. this extreme situation doesn't have much bearing on how people live everyday. especially since rats don't have free will...
there may be some survival mechanism that kicks in at extreme levels of depravation/starvation, but this doesn't have anything to do with people who are trying to lose weight.
i agree with a researcher, who in response to these rat/nutrition studies, basically said these studies are like trying to understand suicide by giving a guinea pig a gun.
12 - Purple Tigress
Maybe the weight yo-yo is why people like Oprah. Particularly if most people are overweight.
13 - Elvira Black
Great piece, Sal. Embarassing enough when a regular person gains a lot of weight. How much more humiliating to do so in front of the whole darn country.
14 - sal m
thanks...
the lesson for "us" is that you need to be very careful to whom you listen.
the lesson for oprah should be that she needs to get some real help, and stop being so concerned with her weight and start being concerned with being healthy.
15 - BAP
Sal, did you note the directive on your site "personal attacks not allowed"?
Typical Harvard attitude to discredit the person..'Oprah's a good example' ..'vulnerable'.."Oprah lacks discipline" Yes, you did belittle Oprah, critical of her shared attempts to deal with this weight problem. And there you are trying to sell your book... Title sounds like the most telling con job. I didn't need this article to review all the pitfalls and failures. You just convinced me again it is a hopeless battle.
16 - sal m
BAPS:
Perhaps you need to re-read the item. I criticize oprah for pushing her team on the rest of america when they can't even help her, with all of her resources. i criticize her team for selling gimmick laden nonsense to a public who will follow oprah without hesitation.
there is a difference between a criticism and a personal attack. unfortunately, too many people do not understand this distinction.
and from where did you ever get the idea that I'm trying to sell my book?? that's the funniest thing that i've ever read in a post. i don't have a book.
17 - susan
You wrote that "Oprah obviously doesn't have any discipline when it comes to her nutritional and exercise habits."
I'd say it's obvious she has a LOT of discipline, but as you point out, she probably also has an eating disorder. I don't know her, but as someone who has the same yo-yo history, I can tell you that discipline has nothing to do with it. As Bob Greene (apparently) believe, it IS emotional in nature. A person with a compulsive eating disorder or binge eating disorder can be "disciplined" for weeks or months, but if she (or he) hasn't dealt with the reasons she eats when she isn't hungry, the weight will always come back. It is only when you face what's really "eating you" that you will lose weight and be able to keep it off.
18 - sal m
susan:
i don't think repeated bouts of weight loss and weight gain are indications of discipline.
if emotional eating is a compulsion, a guy like bob greene is not capable of handling this problem. the problem is with trainers who try to treat a client like oprah as if they were the typical person who needs/wants help with losing 10 or 15 pounds. these kinds of trainers don't know the limits of their capabilities. people with eating disorders need to go to medical professionals and/or mental health professionals and not personal trainers with half-baked pop psych theories.
19 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Sal,
Great article. Many years ago, a doctor put my sister on a diet by which she was to lose no more than one or two pounds a month - and gradually shrink her stomach - thus shrinking her appetite. She never gained the weight back.
It taught me one basic lesson. If you don't shrink your appetite, no matter how many kilos you drop, you'll always have a weight problem.
20 - Beth
I don't think Oprah got down to 135 in her latest go-round...that sound like her weight right after her Optifast experience. I think she did get down to 150 or 160-ish.
Also, I think Oprah hasn't set her self up as an "expert" on weight loss. She's set her self up as someone who has had lifelong struggles with weight. Sometime she prevails, and sometimes she doesn't. And she would be the *first* to tell you she has an eating disorder.
Frankly, what I think the Oprah tale suggests is that *everyone* is missing the actual point. If Oprah, with her millions and her access to weight and fitness gurus, is still struggling, then maybe it's more than a question of "the right plan" or of eating less and moving more.
21 - Purple Tigress
My co-worker is on the low carb plan. I love it when she blames a little piece of bread her weight problems after eating a very large cinnamon stick or better yet, two helpings of ice cream (because it's free) or the three slices of bacon every morning.
I know it's wrong, but I can't help but laugh (and continue to eat bread).
22 - sal m
PT:
i think that's a great approach...i have people who express wonderment that i can actually eat a piece of cake or a cookie and not immediately gain weight from it...and i don't jump on a piece of exercise equipment to "burn off" whatever "bad" food that i ate...and i laugh...
23 - TY
I think its horrible that she is being judged for her weight gain that her "eating guru's are not doing there job"....its not there fault, its Oprah's. Maybe she's depressed or something like that. Shame on you for thinking people can't go through things in their life.
24 - parrish
It's about addiction. You can "plan" and muster all of the discipline and experts and diets and exercise plans and gastric bypass surgeries that money can buy, but you have to deal with the addiction. You can pull the arrow out, but unless you find out why someone is shooting at you, (or what causes you to keep stepping into the line of fire?) you'll just keep pulling out arrows.
A 12-step program has been the only thing that has helped me.
I'm kind of expecting to see Oprah go the gastric bypass route, although I hope that she doesn't.
Anyone notice that Carney Wilson put a lot of her weight back on? Yes, she had a baby, but she has not dealt with her addiction, either.
25 - sal m
i agree that oprah and many others suffer from an addiction problem. how it gets to that point i will leave to the psychologists and the rest.
however, this problem is compounded when the person and those around him/her don't recognize this problem for what it is. and then this is made even worse by the "personal trainer" or other kind of guru who is over their head and doesn't realize it.
too many people in the fitness profession overstep their bounds when it comes to handling their clients.