WEIGHT LOSS TIPS

Sarah Ferguson Used to Weigh 200 Pounds

Sarah Ferguson is now 47 years old. She is celebrating ten years as spokesperson for Weight Watchers. When she joined the Weight Watchers program in 1997 she was about '200 pound odd'. Weight Watchers has reportedly paid her millions of dollars per year since then. Ferguson says they saved her life. She first became fat at the age of 12 after her mother left the family.

Ferguson says that not only does she watch what she eats, she also does some exercise daily be it pilates, yoga, jogging or lifting weights.

She says "It's very, very difficult to keep focused and motivated. You have to learn to control the darkness in your mind. And you have to be honest with yourself about what your triggers [to overeat] are. Because if you don't, you'll choose food instead of anything else."

Oprah Winfrey

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.

Kris Robinson decided she wanted to lose weight this year. She has a history of diabetes in her family and felt it was time to begin moving her family's diet to healthier foods.

She started her diet and exercise plan on January 7th. She's lost 12 pounds already and would like to lose thirty more. She is working out on her new treadmill at home and has started to eat more legumes, nuts, brown rice and vegetables. She is trying to cut out the white flour and white sugar. Her family is eating whole wheat pasta for the first time.

In the process, she is already a size smaller and has gone out and bought a new pair of pants. This mom stopped wearing 'mom's jeans' a year ago;

I didn't know that there was a real distinction until I bought my first pair of 'sort of' low rise jeans. They weren't TOO low rise, just enough to sit below my belly button and look stylish. I have to admit, they were much more flattering than my other jeans. Then Payton (my 15 year old) said, "Cool, no more Mom jeans?"

"Huh?" I replied. What do you mean? "You know, those ones that come way up towards your chest, like Erkel? Those are Mom Jeans."

Smart ass.

Holy Crap! Had I become a Mom? Really, like an uncool Mom? Unbeknownst (?) to me, apparently, sadly, I had. I thought I was just resisting the trendiness in favor of a more classic look. How was I to know that the kids actually had something right this time with the low rise style? Like I said, they ARE more flattering. In the next several weeks I got more compliments than ever including "are you loosing weight?" Well, no, I'm just not wearing Mom Jeans anymore!

Check out her weight loss progress at her site at A Mom on a Mission.

Here's a treadmill for swimmers. It seems like the ultimate luxury in terms of workout equipment.

It's a pool that is only 8 feet by 15 feet big. There is a current you can adjust to any speed or ability. At top speed, the equivalent swim would be a mile without turns in less than 20 minutes. It's advertised as being ideal for exercise, water aerobics or rehabilitation. The Endless Pool costs about $20,000 and another $3,500 for installation.

Beth Ostrosky likes to walk her dog to stay in shape. She's a spokesperson for a Long Island animal shelter and they've partnered with Weight Watchers on a campaign called "Adopt a Walking Buddy".

Other than walking her dog, Beth Ostrosky probably works out on a regular basis. She looks fantastic at age 34. She's been a long term girlfriend of Howard Stern and he finally proposed to her this week. Howard Stern is quite a bit older than her, (53) but on the other hand he does make over $300 million a year. They've probably got a nice big gym with all the latest fitness equipment in their house and maybe even a personal trainer or two.