‘MY WEIGHT WAS MY SHIELD AND MY SHAME…’
Oprah Winfrey opens up
After our own Queen, is there any woman more instantly recognisable than Oprah Winfrey? She may be America’s TV royalty, but her fame and influence stretch across the globe. Her talk show was the highest rated in the world. She is an Oscar-nominated actress, an award-winning author and a multi-billionaire media mogul. But Oprah is also an outstanding philanthropist, helping young women who would otherwise be deprived of an education to get an inspired start in life. Now, to this impressive list, she has added cookbook author. Food, Health And Happiness is the story of her changed lifestyle – and the recipes that helped her reshape her eating habits and lose more than three stone. In our interview, Oprah is as down to earth and as honest as she is on screen, flicking through the cookery book to show us her favourite recipes. She explains why food is no longer a battle ground, how she shed the pounds and why she is the happiest she has ever been...
INTERVIEW JESSICA CALLAN The book is a very honest account of your struggles with being overweight. What prompted it?
I first lost weight after fasting in 1988, and got letters from people saying we don’t like you any more because you are no longer like us. That really affected me. But I can see how being overweight subconsciously served me. We all use it in different ways. It has been the go-to comfort for me. You use it as your coat and your shield, and it keeps you from doing things. You don’t have to go to that party because you don’t have a dress to wear and nothing is going to fit you. But the wonderful thing for me is that I reached a point where I no longer wanted to hide. I know that sounds strange for somebody who is in the public eye, but it was my shield and my shame.
Tell us about Food, Health And Happiness…
It is a food memoir – my story of food and my journey with making peace with it. It’s more than just recipes. It’s my feelings about food and the impact it has had on my life, and how being overweight has defined me as a public person.
So what changed for you?
Weight Watchers called me – that’s how bad it was! At the
time, I was vacillating between ‘What’s the next diet?’ and ‘What’s the real answer?’ I have never been able to fast for more than three days since I did the fourmonth fast. My body just won’t do it. It was devastating, and brought trauma to my body. I didn’t eat a morsel. So when Weight Watchers called, I was at this place of ‘I can’t even believe I am here again.’ I had a bad knee that caused me to hurt my ankle, one exacerbated the other, and I couldn’t work out. I love entertaining, and had scheduled friends and family to come to my ranch in Maui, Hawaii. Every day it’s cocktails on the porch… and I wasn’t willing to give up socialising. I was getting bigger and bigger and gaining more and more weight. So when Weight Watchers called, I considered it an answer to a prayer. I thought, here is a path. The first day wasn’t bad – it was actually quite fun. After the first week, I liked it. It gives me structure but doesn’t put me in a position where I feel like I’m depriving myself.
How much weight have you lost?
I have lost 42.5lb over a 15-month period. Hopefully by the time this comes out, it will be 50. For the first time I have said, wherever I am, that is where I am. I am under 200lb (14st) now, but if I don’t go any further, I am really okay with that. I didn’t have a goal in mind when I started. I just wanted to gain control and feel like I was not at war every time I sat down to have a meal. And wasn’t thinking, ‘Well if I eat that, then I can’t eat that.’ Now I feel liberated! It’s the thing I have been looking for my whole life. To feel a sense of freedom. The taste of freedom? There is nothing better than that!
And is food no longer a weapon?
I have to say, I take great pleasure in it now. I don’t have that moment of should I, shouldn’t I? Oh no, the bread is coming! The thing now is being more present and more conscious of my every experience. I am thankful that I am able to get up to the top of the stairs without having to stop to take a breath! What I have been able to accomplish has been a spiritual movement for me, because it has helped me to be more conscious about everything.
Why did you finally feel ready?
Everybody reaches a point. You are sick and tired of lamenting and whining. You are sick and tired of telling yourself okay, I will start on Monday. Or next week. As the famous Sixties American civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer said, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Sick and tired of making promises to yourself. There is no greater lie than telling yourself, ‘I will start tomorrow.’ When you say that to yourself day after day, year after year, you no longer believe yourself. You no longer have confidence that you are going to do what you say you are going to do.
Tell us about other diets you have tried. I have done the no-carb cycle so many times, but you can only do that for so long. It inevitably ends with your body craving what you are trying to deny it. And then when you go back to carbs, you blow up like a fish. And also three days of green juice. All that stuff! Those days are over for me. The process of losing the weight has to be consistent. I don’t see it as a diet. I see it as this is the way I now live. Some weeks I have lost weight, some weeks I haven’t because I chose to eat a barbecue. At no point have I felt like I was deprived.
You have been with your partner Stedman for 30 years. How has he supported you through these struggles?
He discovered sooner than I did that it’s all about the food. I would be working out furiously and he would say, ‘It’s all about the food!’ I couldn’t have asked for a better mate in life. He has always loved me exactly where I was. This is what you wish for – somebody who wants the best for you no matter where you are in the journey. He has been my greatest rock of support. He has loved me no matter what size I was, and only wanted what was best for me. Now he is so pleased. When he is having apple pie and I say I’m sticking with the sorbet, he always says: ‘You are doing it, babe!’ The same thing has been true for my long-time best friend, Gayle. I remember when I lost weight in 1988 and Gayle said, ‘I am so happy for you, but I never saw you as a fat person.’ I said, ‘Well that’s because you are seeing through the eyes of friendship and you couldn’t see.’
Do you feel more confident in yourself now you have a healthy relationship with food?
I want to make it very clear that I never ever felt a lack of confidence. I felt shame about not being able to conquer what I felt was a disability that I should have been able to control. But none of that made me feel less confident. Even at my most overweight I felt shame getting up [thinking], ‘Oh wow, they are looking at my
butt, please don’t film me from behind.’ That sort of thing. But once I got to the podium to speak, I lost that. I always felt a connection to the audience that left me feeling valued, respected and empowered because of it.
So my shame was no different than a mother having to show up at a wedding for her daughter or son and wishing she had lost weight and wasn’t in a size 16 but was in a size 12. That same thing I felt was what other people feel every day. They are just not on a big stage in front of millions of people. But it did not correlate with confidence. It correlated with I wish I could do better.
What sort of exercise do you do?
I have made peace with exercise. Instead of looking at it as some sort of horrible chore, I now look at it as a celebration and an honouring of my body. I think, ‘Whoa, you are 63 and you can still run up that hill!’ Making peace with food is a part of health and happiness, but you cannot survive without movement. Sometimes it is a treadmill. I have made a ritual of walking the dogs at a pace where I can get my heart rate up. I also do resistance stretching, where you have at least two people on your body pushing in one direction as you are resisting them. I do that a couple of times a week, as well as yoga. The older you get, flexibility and balance is the most important thing.
How do you feel about ageing?
I love it! It really allows you to sit in the high place and have perspective on your life and its meaning. It’s the seat of true awareness, and for me has brought major contentment. My favourite new word is contentment – it brings great satisfaction from a life well lived. Though if you haven’t lived your life well and have a bunch of regrets, then maybe it’s not such a high seat.
Maya Angelou was a role model to me. I remember when she hit 80 and said to me, ‘Honey, the 80s are hot, babe! You just want to get there if you can.’ At the time I was like, Really? But I see what she means.
Don’t resist the life that you have or where you are. Be as fully present and as accepting of this moment as you can, and you end your suffering. I find it very sad when people say they wish they were in their 20s. You are still trying to figure stuff out in your 20s! Who wants to go through all of that again?
What makes you happy?
I have my girls from South Africa (from Oprah’s Leadership Academy, which opened a decade ago) who are now in college! I have 172 girls, and 20 are in college in the United States and use my home as their home base. They are finding themselves and discovering what it means to be a woman in the 21st century.
It is more rewarding than I would ever have imagined. I was doing this to help them, but it has brought a light to my life that I can’t explain. It’s very much like people who see their kids grow up and do well – and I have that 20-fold with my girls. When people were pressuring me to get married and have children, I knew I was not going to be a person that ever regretted not having them, because I feel like I am a mother to the world’s children. Love knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if a child came from your womb or if you found that person at age two, 10 or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works. For me it was perfect, because I didn’t want babies. I wouldn’t have been a good mom for babies. I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage! But this is so rewarding… I know a lot of people who have attained great fame and physical wealth and have no peace whatsoever. That’s the saddest thing ever.
Now that you are over the battle you had with food and weight, are you kind to yourself?
Yes. It is so unkind to punish yourself every day for what you ate last night. You wouldn’t do it to another person. The motto that came out of my experience is to live fully! That’s exactly what it has allowed me to do. I wasted energy on dieting and the burden and struggle of it. Now I have more energy because I am not wasting it on negative stuff.