Oprah and my sadness.
 

I have to admit, I miss the idea that Oprah has decided to give up on weight loss. I always enjoyed tuning in and finding out what would be the next thing she would be doing or promoting to lose weight.

I have heard that she has decided not to worry about the number on the scale, but concentrate on health and happiness. Me too, but I still believe that I will always worry about the number, along with health and happiness.:dizzy:

I still see the old familiar look in her eye when she is talking with a guest about weight loss. I have really enjoyed Oprah's show over the years. I feel a kind of sisterhood with her. I have struggled right along with her for 25 years and will greatly miss her show.

No weight loss show, I live for those shows!

I love when they show clips of her shows through the past 25 years and see her at so many different weights. It's like clips of my own life. There are pics on my walls of me at many different weights. To many, this would seem like failure (heck, it does to my own mother), but I look at it like at least I keep trying and picking myself up and moving on.

That's where the sadness comes in for me. I feel like Oprah has been a weight loss buddy all these years, and now she's dropped out of the circle or something.

For some people, this can be a necessary stage of personal development. I really think it was time spent "not worrying about the number," that in the long run actually saved my life. When I focused primarily on the number, I tended to do unhealthy things to lose the weight.

Focusing on the numbers most of my life (since my first diet in kindergarten) I had only ever been (ultimately) unsuccesful with weight loss. I was always either losing weight rapidly or gaining weight rapidly. Maintaining my weight wasn't a skill I had ever developed.

If I hadn't spent a few years "not worrying about the number" I don't think I ever would have learned to maintain weight loss. I always would have been losing or gaining, never maintaining.

Eventually, the numbers had to become important again, but they never again would be top priority to the exclusion of common sense. When the number was most important, I was always willing to do unhealthy things to make the numbers move faster (because that was always my first concern).

For me (and I'm not saying for everyone else) I had to diet "backwards," taking the number almost completely out of the equation. I decided instead of focusing on the number, I'd decide what healthy changes I was willing to make whether or not it resulted in weight loss. Weight loss became the reward rather than the goal.

I'm at the point now where the number has to be part of the goal, but it's still a struggle to give the number it's necessary, but no greater importance. Keeping it in perspective is still difficult. I'm still tempted to resort to unhealthy and unsustainable methods for the sake of speed.

Maybe a little time off of the diet rollercoaster, will allow her to recharge and refocus. It helped me. I just wish I had done so decades ago, before the rollercoaster became so ingrained in my habits that it has become my "autopilot" mode. Unlearning has been harder than any learning ever was.

I had only ever been (ultimately) unsuccesful with weight loss. I was always either losing weight rapidly or gaining weight rapidly. Maintaining my weight wasn't a skill I had ever developed.

This /\ /\ was always me as well kaplods. I am trying like crazy to unlearn a lot of my previous craziness so that I can live peacefully while getting to a healthy weight. I understand Oprah's decision completely, I just really miss the idea that she will be on TV willing to give it another go with the rest of us.

I know what you mean. Finding good weight loss role models, and sound healthy weight loss advice in popular media is really difficult. It seems that only unhealthy or impractical methods get any attention.

I've been pleasantly surprised by Dr. Oz's show. Even my husband is a convert. He always made fun of me for watching, but I noticed that he not only has been watching the show with me, he's a more regular viewer than I am.

I wish Dr. Oz did more shows on weight loss, but there's usually weight loss and healthy eating tips in almost every show.

My husband and I also really like Dr. Oz. I was also surprised that I like the show as much as I do. When I would see the commercials for it, I thought it looked very boring. However, I like the concept that it isn't flashy or crazy, must be my age showing.

I love the fact that almost every person who is chosen to be his helper for the day is so truly excited to be chosen. You'd think they were getting to meet a rock star by their reactions. I love that.

I also wish there were more weight loss shows.

Are the Dr. Oz shows available online? I don't have a DVR/TIVO, so I can't get them recorded, but I would like to watch some of his shows....

I, for one, and glad that she's trying to forget the number and focusing on health. In reality, that's the best way to go about it. I've felt bad for her jumping onto fad diets only to have them fail, and fail in the face of millions of fans, no less! Maybe now she'll have genuine success. :)

With an opposing view here, how can she concentrate on "health" if she continues to stay at this heavy weight? I don't believe it is possible and she is just fooling herself. I am the same age she is and at this time in life something is going to go bad, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc.

I have never watched Oprah, but I do agree that people often make a weird divide between "eating healthy" and "dieting": they define "eating healthy" as not eating junk food and "dieting" as eating less, and they treat those as two independent states: you can be eating healthy but not dieting, dieting but not eating healthy, eating healthy and dieting, or not eating healthy and not dieting. The problem is that overeating IS inherently unhealthy, even if you are eating all healthy things. So some form of portion control is part of healthy eating. That doesn't mean one has to be a slave to the scale, but some awareness of changes in body fat is part of being healthy.

I'm experimenting with the same kind of thing this year, and so far, I'm loving it. I'm still tracking things, like my body fat percentage, my score on the Presidential Adult Fitness Test and my points in the Presidential Fitness Challenge, but this is the first year in a long time where I haven't set a weight loss goal for myself.

Most of the reason I'm changing my focus is that it really did get to be all about the number on the scale for me. If I didn't like a morning weigh in, I'd try to get a workout in without eating or drinking anything just to see if I could get the number to go down. I wasn't thinking about what's best for my body - just what I could do to score a short-term loss.

I'm hoping that this way of living will ultimately be more sustainable for me, and so far, I'm pretty happy with the way it's making me feel.

I don't really know much about Oprah- but, I think "shame on her". I know a lot of women really look up to her and can misconstrue that message. Some people can't differentiate "eating healthy" and "dieting". Some people have trouble making the decisions and have trouble sticking to a program without looking at a measureable number. Realistically you can't measure your health and happiness with a number. I can measure my weight with a number and after losing 64 pounds I can tell you that I am healthier and happier then I've been in 10 years.

shame on her? no one has any right to tell her what body size she should be. That is between her and her doctor

I admire those people who can ignore the scale. Some how I doubt that I will ever be able to do that. I am well aware that I have some serious issues with overeating and mindless eating. I am also aware that I have a serious sugar addiction.

I realize that putting too much emphasis on the numbers can be just as detrimental (for me) as completely ignoring the number. I am trying my best to incorporate the scale into a healthy way of living.

As far as Oprah, the reason I have always loved her and her show is that she seems so real to me. I will never understand what it is like to have her fortunes, but everything else, it seems like we share a sisterhood. She made me understand that losing weight and maintaining it is a monumental undertaking. Even with chefs and trainers and doctors at her disposal 24/7, ultimately she was unable to keep off the weight. That made me understand that this battle is mainly psychological and therefore I attack it from a different perspective.

I will get over the sadness, and I will always be thankful to Oprah for helping me to open my eyes to my own issues. I did not expect her or anyone to solve it for me. I look forward to that continuing journey, believe it or not.