"Enough": Oprah Winfrey on her weight-loss lessons

This was 60 pounds ago. You were 60 pounds lighter? 60 pounds ago I think of my life in terms of my thighs. It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Pauley. Oprah Winfrey is the kind of legend we usually say needs no introduction. She is Oprah after all. This morning we talk about the battle of her life which at age 71 she says she's finally winning. You always wear really beautiful clothes. Always have. And I wonder if it's a joy to get dressed now. I can tell you what a joy it is to actually pack clothes that you know are going to fit and you're going to feel good in them. I mean it is a joy to get dressed. That is such a powerful first question, Jane Pauley, really. Powerful is one of the superlatives befitting Oprah Winfrey. One of the best known and most admired people on the planet. And one of the richest. But for all her success she seemed powerless against a weight problem. A deeply personal struggle she's waged publicly and openly. You mean me? In 1985 when her talk show A.M. Chicago was getting national attention, Oprah appeared on The Tonight Show with guest host Joan Rivers. And I'm sitting there and we're toward the end of the interview and Joan turns to me and says, So tell me, how'd you gain the weight? So how'd you gain the weight? I ate a lot. I was stunned in that moment. When I now look back and I see that moment. But I left feeling humiliated and embarrassed, but not the least bit of anger or being upset about it. Because? Because I thought, she's right. Over the next 40 years, Oprah would gain and lose hundreds of pounds. In the fall of 1988, after a strict four-month liquid diet, a new svelte Oprah appears wearing size 10 Calvins, weighing 145 and pulling a wagon with 67 pounds of animal fat. It was all back, plus 25 more, when she went to the Daytime Emmy Awards in 1992. And I go to the Emmys praying not to win. Literally praying not to win. Because I don't want to have to get up out of my seat and have everybody watch me do that walk to the stage. She started over again the next day, working out with an on-call personal trainer this time. In 1994, she even ran a marathon. Oprah knew how to lose weight. She did it over and over. My body, Jane, was always seeking 211 to 218. So usually by the time I would hit 211, when I first went on the diet for the wagon of fat and pulled out the wagon of fat, when I did my first marathon, once I get to 211, I go, Oh, I got to do something. But now I understand that the biology of me, which is different than the biology of you and everybody else, everybody, all of us has our own, that no matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, no matter what, it was always trying to get my body back to 211. 211, not because 211 is her ideal weight, but rather a set point, a genetically influenced weight range. Oprah calls it the enough point. Enough is also the title of a new book Oprah co-wrote with Dr. Anya Yastrobov from the Yale School of Medicine. Enough point. How do you know what your body's number is? For most people, it's the weight that they kind of always gravitate to. So to lose weight, you cut back on calories and start craving high-fat food. Or you eat less, but nothing changes. Our body's like, well, if you're going to eat less, then I'm going to make you more efficient. I'm going to make you burn less. So what happens is together, collectively, we end up eating more and burning less. It's the enemy within which is in our brains. Yes. So now that we know what the problem is, the hormones that drive, why don't people just stop obeying it? That would be like trying to control something that is not in your control. That would be like holding your breath. That would be like holding your breath for the rest of your life. Every time somebody says, just eat less, move more, we're asking our patients to control their biology and hold their breath, and it's just not possible. And why would we do that? We don't do that for any other disease. And that's what the American Medical Association says obesity is, a disease, a treatable disease. The good news for you, the transformative news, was that if it's a disease... It's not my fault. It's not my fault, Jane. It's not my fault. And I could weep right now. I could weep right now. I'm not going to, but I could weep right now for all of the many days and nights I've journaled about this being my fault. And why can't I conquer this thing? In the last decade, nearly a dozen weight management drugs have been approved for chronic weight issues and for millions, drugs like GLP-1s are the answer to their prayers. Finally, a scientifically supported, medically approved weight loss strategy, that worked, and yet Oprah resisted. I was so motivated by shame that I felt I could not take the drug because if I took the drug, I, who had been the poster child for I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, willpower, willpower, let's just get more willpower. If I couldn't do it, then I would be shamed, and ashamed of myself for not being able to do it myself. The medications don't work for everyone, and some can't tolerate side effects ranging from nausea to gallstones. But it's been two years since Oprah finally started medication, and it's working for her. Actually now, actually for the first time, back to my marathon weight. I just yesterday hit my marathon weight. What's that? 155. And so that's it for me. I'm going to just try to maintain. Well done, because I thought 160 was your goal weight. Yeah, it was, but as I continue to work out here, the combination of the medication, and hiking every day, and resistance training has given me the body that I had when I was running the marathon. So I was 40 and feeling really good, but to be able to be 71 and feel that I'm in the best shape of my life feels better than it did when I was 40. I would submit that you would have been a phenomenal success, but I don't think you would have become Oprah if you hadn't had the weight issue and been open about it and shared it. Yeah, I would agree with that. I actually agree with that. And that's why I don't have any regrets about it. There's a wonderful spiritual, African-American spiritual, called I Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. So I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now, for my journey now, for my journey now. I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. So I wouldn't change the journey, because I think the struggle with the weight actually helped me be more relatable and relate more to other people who are in their own struggles. But I'm glad now to be in a position where I feel the healthiest and strongest I have ever been. Once again, my conversation with Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey grew up riding on dirt roads. We added this bridge here in the pond. Now on her sprawling Montecito estate near Santa Barbara, California, she owns the road. This used to belong to my neighbor, so this is 23 acres. Her house used to be right there. We took this fence down, and then so this became my whole backyard. Well, it's a nice place you got here. Now there's an ocean beyond. Yes, yeah, there's an ocean beyond. And that's yours too? The ocean's not mine. Around here, all of the views are spectacular, especially the one looking back. Born in Mississippi in 1954, Oprah Winfrey was a teen beauty queen who became a local TV reporter in Nashville. And I'm Oprah Winfrey. We both hope you make it a great Labor Day weekend. And then an anchor in Baltimore. And the beautiful thing about my life was that I started out in local television, as you did, and when you start out locally, you get this little ditty tiny thing. But I failed. I failed in Baltimore. I failed. They brought me in as a 22-year-old with an anchor guy, white-haired Jerry Turner, who was the most popular local anchor in the country, not just Baltimore. And he totally hated me. He resented me. He would do everything he could to condescend to me anyway. I remember one time we were on the set, and he said to me, So, you're from Mississippi. Can you name all the tributaries of the Mississippi River? And I was like, all the tributaries of the Mississippi River? No, I can't. He goes, Well, what school did you go to? Well, I went to Tennessee State. Was that an accredited school? So you got a degree? I mean, that kind of thing. This is in between the commercial breaks, okay? Boy, that happened to me in Chicago. That happened to you? Started in September, basically. Yeah. Was taken off the late news in the spring. Maybe we share a few things. The surest way to cut the high cost of eating is to eat less. I was a shy kid from Indiana who started as a local reporter in Indianapolis and wound up on national TV. The newest member of the Today family, Jane Pauley. And Oprah was watching. You were such an inspiration. I was like, I remember calling Gail that morning. Oh, my God, it was unbelievable. Well, that I inspired you. Yes. But Oprah famously went on to build her worldwide media empire and a following that some world leaders can only dream of. You have such power. Now that you are this woman undeterred by weight and noise, what are you going to do? Well, I don't even feel that, that's a beautiful question, but I don't feel compelled to do anything. So I don't know what it means, actually, other than I feel free. As you know, your name was credibly bandied about for the presidency. No, that's not going to happen. What I really want to do is to continue to use who I am and what that represents as a force in the world, as a force for good, and to allow people to not let the noises of the world steal their joy. You are such a person of positivity. I am indeed. For all of her astonishing success, it seems that Oprah is always aware of how far she's come. How do you figure that from that success you kept on going, you kept on going and became something so much bigger than television? You know what I mean. I do know what you mean, and I have to say, there's a wonderful poem by Countee Cullen called Yet Do I Marvel? And I would have to say, yet do I marvel at that myself. Sometimes in the early spring, the frogs are in the pond, and I can open the door and I can hear the frogs out at night. And it sounds just like Mississippi, being on the porch in Mississippi. But the distance from Mississippi to Montecito cannot be measured. It just cannot be measured. And I marvel at how did this happen? How did it happen that I was able to navigate the waters of racism and sexism and misogynism and all the things that we had to endure. Yet do I marvel. And marvelous it is. Well, we have little bits of things in common, I'm happy to say. Little bits of things. Yes. A lot. Because we were women of this business at a time when it was really tough to be in this business. But now it's become something else. It was both. It was a time that was tough to be a woman in the beginning. Yes. But boy, was the timing good. Boy, was the timing good. We made the best of it. Yes, we did.