Oprah says she does at least 30 minutes of aerobics a day. She calls it
a party for one and can go for 45 minutes to the music of Stevie Wonder
or Tina Turner. She avoids telling herself that the workout is hard
because it negates the “whole process of trying to move forward.”
Three days a week Oprah adds resistance training. She has also started
doing Pilates two to three times a week. Oprah considers it a
“spiritual act”, where she practices principles of “moving out from the
center, awareness, harmony, balance, and control to help me embody where
I'm going with my life.”
The benefit, according to Winfrey, is that you end up walking taller.
She says you feel stronger and look leaner as well. Oprah adds that if
you are doing just for those reasons, you will get frustrated because
the process is so very slow.
Diet is incredibly important. Winfrey says that she has learned to
treat refined and processed carbohydrates as though they were poison.
She does give herself four to six opportunities a year to indulge.
Oprah says that we spend too much time worrying about what we ate and
what we shouldn’t eat. We feel guilty about it, and this can cause us
to get-down on ourselves. This could add up to several years of our
life and we can’t get that time back. For that reason she is not
wasting any more time dwelling on those negative thoughts. She says
“It's amazing. I feel as if I'm living on a higher frequency, a
stronger, brighter charge. The voltage got turned up.”
Oprah used to use every big occasion as a time to eat. She would hope
that the parties would have some “good hors d'oeuvres.” Now she says
she is wondering who would be interesting to meet at the parties.
She has learned to avoid the food triggers. When she would get home she
would put her purse down and go straight for the refrigerator. Now she
says when she comes home she puts down her purse and puts on her
pajamas. This gets her past the fridge impulse.
Many people use a reward system to eat. Oprah said that when she
finished a show she would go to her office and eat some potato chips.
That was a way of rewarding herself. Now though she walks around the
building to get to her office. This has helped her break the pattern.
It is amazing how self control can make you feel good. On her 50th
Birthday celebration she told herself that she would not eat a piece of
the decadent cake everyone saw on the show. She made her mind up and
stuck to it and she says it made her feel “absolutely fabulous”.
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Oprah says she would like to lose another 12 pounds or so. To do this
she has begun a “personal Boot Camp” lasting three months. With Bob
Green, author of Total Body Makeover, she has put together a eating and
exercise plan based on what she has found to work for her. She has also
asked four people at Harpo to do it with her. Oprah says that she his
hoping to help others. She says “When you learn, you teach.”
People always say I am too busy to exercise. She says you need to put
yourself on the top of the list, and give yourself the same respect you
may give others. We lie to ourselves and this breaks the laws of self
preservation, according to Oprah.
