Oprah Reveals All: Life-Changing Lessons on Weight, Shame and Worthiness! (pt 1)

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Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Kern-Lima.

My guest today is Miss Oprah Winfrey. Oprah, welcome to the Jamie Kern-Lima show.

and several days actually after it, I was walking down the street and people were saying to me, I love watching that Oprah show. And we eventually changed the name really after a few months. So to be able to say the Jamie Kern-Lima show, I know what that takes to get there.

You recently held a, you recently hosted a course and a big conversation for the Oprah Daily community around the state of weight and around shame and weight. And it was so profound in the sense of there is this idea that's been around forever, that if somebody has challenges with their weight that somehow it's a willpower issue. It's all a willpower issue. And so many people have shame around that. Can you share about just the intention of the state of weight and about the things that you are sharing in that show with the doctors on the show about how things are, now that people have more medical knowledge and understanding of obesity, that the link between, oh, it's a willpower thing is a very antiquated.

Like when the, you have one doctor after another doctor saying obesity is a disease. And I was like, when, I didn't get that memo. When did somebody actually say that? I remember when I was on television saying alcoholism is a disease. In the late eighties, early nineties, like 87, we did our first show on alcoholism and called alcoholism as a disease.

And people were like, what are you talking about? They're just using it as an excuse, put the bottle down, no such thing. And so I remember trying to convince the masses.

that people who were suffering from alcoholism or had alcohol issues, you know, needed treatment. It wasn't just, you need to put the bottle down and stop it. And so hearing someone say, scientists, medical professionals, that, oh yeah, we've known for 10 years, at least 13,, 14 years, that this is a disease. It's like a disorder in the brain. So it, just like, went, click, click, click, click, click, because I very much understand it for alcoholism, because I've seen it with people who take one drink and they're like gone.

I had people in my family who, like, take two sips of wine and they are a different person and literally metabolize it differently. So what I understood from the state of weight that I had not understood for the past 48 years of battling my weight is that there's something in the brain that allows people like myself to metabolize fat differently than other people. And that, no matter what I do, I'm always gonna go back to the set point that my brain thinks it needs to hold the weight. And that is why, even though I pulled out the wagon of fat and in 1988, and I didn't have a morsel of food for five solid months in losing that weight on Optifast, that three days later, I was five pounds heavier. And a week later, I was 10 pounds heavier.

And that show happened in November. And by the week before Christmas, I remember Don Johnson, the Don Johnson of Miami Vice was having a party and it invited me and some members of my show to come. And I wouldn't go because I thought I was too fat to go. I'd gone from 145 on the day of the show. And I think I was 157..

In the course of like a week and a half or two. And the shame started again. The biggest shame was, there used to be a man called Mr. Blackwell. Every year would do his list of the people who were in and the people who were out, the people who were well-dressed and the people who were not.

And I think it was 1987, Mr. Blackwell did his list. And I was at the bottom of the list. And I was on the cover of one of the magazines. I think it was TV Guide.

And I was listed and the headline was, dumpy, frumpy and downright lumpy. And I was wearing this, what I had thought was a beautiful black dress. Makes me wanna cry. Beautiful black dress, obviously had to have the dress made. And I was so proud of myself because I'd won the Bob Hope Award.

And they took the picture from that and it was bumpy, dumpy and downright lumpy. And it was on the cover of all the magazines, okay?

I ingested that. I swallowed it like it was a pill designed just for my body. And I took in all the shame. And I accepted that this thing that people have labeled me with being fat, being overweight, being unable to control my willpower, not having any willpower. That's my shame.

That's it, they're right. They're right. And for 25 years, every single week, in one form or another, there was a tabloid story or some exploitation of my weight. Making fun of my weight was national sport for 25 years. Comedians did it.

The best comedians did it. The highest comedians did it. People with their shows did it. It was just accepted that you could make fun of me and my weight. I remember in Living Color, one of the most hurtful things was in Living Color, had done a skit where the woman was doing something and she just kept eating and getting fatter and fatter and fatter.

And the comedy bit was that eventually she just exploded and the whole audience fell out. And the woman was me. It was one of the sisters portraying me. And so, but that was just accepted. That was just a thing that was accepted.

So I have borne this weight thing and carried it to the point where I just feel like I've just recently turned 70 and I'm not carrying it into the next decade. I'm done with it.

on O Daily? Like when doctors are now saying, and it's literally medically proven, right? There's genes that we carry. So, after I heard this conversation,

it was such an aha moment for me. There were women in your audience that day. There was a mom and daughter in particular. Yeah. Where you could tell the mom had just been kind of, not embarrassed for her daughter, but they'd been working so hard for the daughter to have enough willpower to lose weight.

And that-.

whoa, it's not even my fault. All these years, all those diets, all those times, I tried, I tried, I tried, I came back and I tried again and I lost it. I'm climbing up the mountain, I'm suffering, I'm starving, I'm not. It's not my fault, it's not my fault.

That was the moment. And that was 2023..

I'll get a tissue.

the moment of watching. you have that moment. Yeah. Seeing so many other people in the audience, this is so recent, this is what I'm talking about, that I feel like this is something huge. that is gonna be a massive cultural shift that we are still way ahead of.

It is still way early right now. There will be so many people that hear you when I talk about this that do not get it still. So many people think, if you are overweight, oh, it must be your fault. All of the things. And to hear the doctors on there say, oh, no, no, we've known this for a few years, they can pinpoint in your brain the difference.

After the show, I got tested and I have two of the obesity gene markers. And watching you have that aha, watching people in the audience understand like, oh, it's not my fault, I feel like it is one of the few, not one of the ones that happens, but one of the few that's still accepted in our culture to shame people for is weight. It's still a thing. There's gonna be people listening to us right now that are gonna be like, yeah, but you don't have to eat all that stuff, or do this or do that. To hear doctors say, oh, just like alcoholism is a disease, just like cancer is a disease, right?

To be able to pinpoint-.

whether or not I was going to ever really be able to walk again.

Can't go to the party. We wait on our weight. We attach our, we believe the lie that our weight is our worth, and when you think about what has shame around weight already cost you in your life, I mean, and to have this huge breakthrough, this is a huge medical breakthrough in terms of awareness, right? Doctors are saying, oh no, we've known this for 10 years. You're sharing this with the public for the first time.

It is ahead of the times, and it is gonna free people.

I was judgmental because I have been so judged. I actually don't know anybody who's been more publicly judged about their weight than myself. And I have carried and borne the shame of other people that I allowed, not only allowed, I accepted that what society and Mr. Blackwell had to say about me being dumpy and frumpy and downright lumpy, okay, it's true. And shame on me, shame on me for not being able to do something about it.

It's what you feel for yourself. I realized in that moment, on that state of weight episode for O Daily, that that was a big, big, big revelation for me.

where you're not ostracized because of it, you can use it and flaunt it and be bold and bodacious with it and accept it. I did not grow up in that time. I grew up in a time where there is a condescension, there is a haughtiness, there's a dissension that you know, you feel. And everybody who's overweight, been overweight, has stepped in this situation, you know it when you feel it. So I think that this is a great moment.

I think that this is a seminal moment for people to understand actually the depth of where this whole weight issue comes from. Yes. And particularly to understand that it's a disease.

and you said no. So I'm gonna ask this, because I have just seen every red carpet interview you've done recently and all anyone is talking to you about is your weight right now and just how in great shape you are. And you have not, despite anyone's questions, you haven't shared if in you, in your life, when you say you're doing everything for this level of health and wellbeing and you talk about some of the sort of new medical advancements the company Weight Watchers acquired with drugs that and injectables and things that can help with weight management.

Are you doing all of those?

and I started walking around my yard. And so I started setting different goals for myself, around the house and around where I live. And I remember the first time I walked a mile, it took me like an hour and a half to do it. And I was with one of my girls and she was walking really slow with me. And I was saying, oh God, this is so hard.

This is so hard. And then, every day after I accomplished the mile, I would add a little bit more and a little bit more. And so the bottom line is I started with this intention of getting back into the shape that I felt my greatest sense of power. And that was when I was 40 and running a marathon and preparing to run a marathon. So I wanted to work to get to that feeling that I'm inside my body and it feels like I am my strongest, I am most fit and I am most this.

And so I would add different mileage, different mileage. I went from three to five miles a day, and then five miles a day to seven and seven to 10.. And so I think by Christmas, I think New Year's, we did that great post, with all of us hiking and Gail dragging her poles behind her. And of course, I've been hearing, I had started to hear about Ozempic. That's the first time I heard about.

it was in 2018.

. Looked it up. I said, no, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do anything. that's gonna interfere with the progress that I'm making now, because I don't wanna take something and have everybody think that I took something.

and the weight just dropped off. Because this friend of mine had lost like 40 pounds in two months. And I'm like, well, that is amazing for you. And they were saying, this is a miracle. I was like, well, that's really good for you, but I'm not gonna do that because I've got to stick to my plan.

And I feel that if I don't do it this way,

then it's not gonna be valid. Everybody's just gonna say you took the easy way out. And I felt that for myself. And I also felt that that would be the world's reaction. And I would feel like I didn't actually conquer it.

I didn't actually conquer this thing. I didn't beat it myself. By the time State of Weight happened, we were filming that late July, early August. And I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I can't run any harder.

I can't climb any faster. I can't, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And that show happened.

After that show, I called my doctor. And I will say this, that I have used the medication. I use the medication as a maintenance tool. Now I've given up on a number and I'm just going with how I feel. I just feel like it's a tool that I will use if I feel myself getting beyond a certain point.

All these things. And then to literally watch State of Weight, to have this huge aha moment, to watch other people having it.

while I knew lots of people were on it, I was asking multiple doctors, what do you think, what do you think, what do you think, what do you think? And they were saying that, look, the bottom line is, we don't know what the new medications do in the long term, but we do know what obesity does in the long term. Yes. And so the damage to your body.

versus taking the risk of, I'm going to control the weight, manage the weight to the best of my ability. And if there are, for me, I'm getting my thyroid checked on a regular basis and have been since 2007..

If I had to not use it, I wouldn't, but I feel liberated. I feel a sense of liberation about it. I feel a sense of relief in knowing that feeling that I felt when I was sitting there in State of Weight, eight pounds heavier than I was a month before,

knowing that I don't know what I'm going to do, because I cannot hike any higher, I cannot run any faster.

you have shared the things you're going through, even when people may not understand them yet, and they have helped heal. so many people. Like so many people, have felt, and I'll put myself in that group, have felt, seen, understood, all of that by the things that you've vulnerably shared. And we're sitting here in a moment right now, even talking about the State of Weight and everything shared in that episode from doctors, if they've known for 10 years, who else is sharing this? No one else is having this conversation in this way.

I just wanna highlight a couple things about the impact that you have on people's lives, and have. And just to read a couple to you. Oprah brought my family together. We'd all crowd around the TV to watch a woman do what we could only dream of doing. She gave me hope.

Oprah Winfrey's the reason I love myself so fiercely and know that my voice matters in this world.

This one, I didn't even know I had a light to shine until Oprah told me I did. And now I know I do.

When you hear that, you think what?

And many times I knew I was interviewing guests who didn't get it, even as they're telling their stories, they still didn't get it. But other people observing it could get it from them, that they could feel and see what the people, even telling the stories, could not see for themselves. So it feels like a life well lived. It feels graced is what it is. It feels graced.

It feels like I did and have been doing what I came to do. It feels that I have been a good and faithful servant.

And that's exactly why I wrote my new book, Worthy, how to believe you are enough and transform your life for you. If you have some self-doubt to destroy and a destiny to fulfill, Worthy is for you. In Worthy, you'll learn proven tools and simple steps that bring life-changing results, like how to get unstuck from the things holding you back, build unshakable self-love, unlearn the lies that lead to self-doubt and embrace the truth that wake up worthiness, overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome, achieve your hopes and dreams by believing you are worthy of them and so much more. Are you ready to unleash your greatness and step into the person you were born to be? Imagine a life with zero self-doubt and unshakable self-worth.

Get your copy of Worthy, plus some amazing thank you bonus gifts for you at worthybook.

com or the link in the show notes below. Imagine what you'd do if you fully believed in you. It's time to find out with Worthy. And now more of this incredible conversation with Oprah.

You share about how the first time reading the opening line of The Color Purple and feeling seen and heard and understood, I should say,

you once wrote a letter to your younger self. And there are so many people who have printed it out, who have read it, who...

I wrote a letter to my younger self.

for maybe the people out there who just need to feel less alone and more enough, can you read that?

. This is Oprah's letter to her younger self. Dear beautiful brown skin girl, I look into your eyes and see the light and hope of myself. In this photo, you're just about to turn 20, posing outside the television station where you were recently hired as a reporter. You're proud of yourself for getting the job, but uncertain.

you'll be able to manage all your college classes before one and arrive at the station by 1.

30 for a full day's work. Even so, your biggest concern is how to manage your love life with Bubba. Yes, you are dating someone named Bubba. On this day, you brought him to the station to see where you work, hoping he'll be proud too. He seems less than impressed.

The truth is he's intimidated. You don't know this, though, because you can see... You don't know this, though, because you can see yourself only through his eyes. A lesson you will have to learn again and again to see yourself with your own eyes, to love yourself from your own heart. Well, this is good.

I forgot I wrote this. You have spent too many days and years trying to please others and be what they wanted you to be. You will have to learn that the wounds of your past, rape, molestation, whippings for stepping out of place and not being allowed to show anger or cry afterward damaged your self-esteem. Yet through it all, you've held onto a belief in God and God's belief in you. That will be your single greatest gift, knowing there is a power greater than yourself and trusting that force to guide you.

The trajectory of your life changed the day you answered the call from Chris Clark, the news director at WLAC-TV. Your response was ignited by the words, ignited. Your response was ignited by the words of your then favorite Bible verse, Philippians 3.14.. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Knowing there is a high calling is what will sustain and fulfill you.

From where I sit now, viewing your journey, there are few regrets. Only months before this picture was taken, you wrote a poem about a woman becoming. Even. then you understood that success was a process and that moving with the flow of life and not against it would be your greatest achievement. Love you deeply, Oprah.

Oh my God, I should keep this for myself.

And that is the essence of my life, to try to continue to astonish this mean world that seems to get meaner every day with my kindness, with my open heart, with my understanding and knowing that my kindness is an extension of the source's kindness, that all of my grace and all that I can offer comes from that which is God, and God is the all. And so I just want to continue that. I feel like I have nothing left to prove. I feel like that being released from the weight gain and the weight game has allowed me a different kind of freedom inside my body and inside myself, because one of the things that I recognized with carrying the weight is how much energy it has taken up in my life. How much time, how much energy, how much self-berating, and the difference in moving through the world and choosing to wear and be in clothes that make you feel like you want to go someplace or do something or be a part of something, rather than just wearing what's going to fit.

What can you fit into, as opposed to what feels fantastic, is liberation, is a relief, is another way of feeling. It's another way of being in the world. And I embrace that. I embrace this time. I embrace this next decade.

I embrace being able to use the platform that I have achieved to infuse and lift other people up wherever I can.

I love being in her company, because we laugh unbridled. It's just filled with laughter. We can say anything to one another. And I just cherish her. I cherish how gentle she is.

And so our friendship's very loving. It's very nurturing and soft. And I don't think either one of us get that in many places. I see the little girl in her. And I think she sees the little girl in me.

where you've come from and what happened to you. That space carries you forward in life. And she sees the Mississippi in me and I see the Massachusetts in her. And I see that being in that family where.

everybody around you is just spinning and spinning, and spinning and spinning all the time. And you're trying to find and hold on to an identity that is yours. And for a long time, I couldn't be a full friend to her because I was so intimidated by what I thought the Kennedy Shriver name was. So I remember going to her house for the first time. And I mean, listen, you go to their house and it is like walking into a monument to history.

I mean, there are letters in the bathroom wall from Khrushchev and Mother Teresa, and there's Jack Kennedy getting off an airplane and holding Maria and her mother. And I mean, it is legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy. I mean, it's John F. Kennedy's niece and Eunice Shriver's daughter, and Sergeant Shriver who started the Peace Corps. I mean, so, all around, in the bathroom, on the piano and walking down the hall, there are all of these monuments to the work that they've done in history.

And I remember going to their house for the very first time. You don't just go to Maria Shriver's house with her parents and sit at a dinner table. You've got to talk about meaningful, purposeful things and being completely intimidated by that. And they're all so competitive. And I remember hiding in the bathroom at Ethel's house because I don't want to play another game of football or charades, okay?

So it took me a while because I also felt like what could I offer her as a friend when she has all of these cousins and friends and lives in this world? And it wasn't until I guess I became a full adult that I realized that all of that, even if it's in your family, is still external. You still need somebody who just sees you, who just sees you and the little girl in you and your heart's desire and your longing and what's important to you. So, yes, we've been friends since Baltimore, 1976.. That's a long time.

How did it feel watching that moment happen?

hoe it, sharpen it, all these, it's the only language that she can use this, but she was saying, and pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. Do you hear me? Pass it on. That's your job to pass it on. And so I feel that for each of us, first of all, your gift, my gift, anybody who's listening to us, watching us, your job is to do that, not just for yourself, but as an offering to the world.

And when you shift the seeing of what you do as an offering to what you can give, everything changes. Everything about that changes. So I've done the thing that I needed. I offered that to somebody else, and it comes back to me a hundredfold. I mean, we were speaking earlier about why do I think I am where I am in life?

Number one, because of the intention to do well and to do well by the audience that I served. And I saw myself as serving the audience, not performing for them, but as serving them. That intention for every one of those members of the audience, the millions of people, has come back to me a million fold. And that's the way life works for everybody. That's what's happening, what you're putting out, the energetic vibrational force field is going out, whether that's anger or sadness, or confusion, or depression or mistrust.

And you can't say you believe and you trust, and then go back to mistrusting. So if you really open your heart to understand that there's a vision for your life, there's a dream that God is dreaming, the life forces are dreaming and waiting on you. They are waiting on you to step into the dream. And so the goal is to ask God, what is your dream for me? Not tell God what your dream is, not tell the universe what the dream is.

Get still enough to say, I am open to what the dream of my creation is for me. There is a reason why you are here. And if you can't figure it out, ask. And don't go around asking your friends, because they don't know. It's between you and your source.

It's the power, the forces, the energetic, vibrational force field that put that sperm with that egg in that moment and caused you to be here. Ask that thing, whatever you call that. That's what you should be leaning into. And if you just lean into that every day, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. And it shall be given.

And know that if you are open to the answer, the answers will start to show up. You will start to feel this is right, and this is right, and this is right, and that's not right. And I shouldn't take that step, because, and if you don't learn to trust your own feelings, then you will never trust anyone. If you cannot trust yourself, and if you can learn to trust yourself, it means you can handle any thing. I remember a long time ago, a woman was on a show, and I had this aha moment when she was like, she'd been in bad relationships, and she'd been betrayed, and she da-da-da, and she didn't know, and she was starting this relationship with another guy again, and she didn't know if she could trust him.

And Phil said, but can you trust yourself? Can you trust yourself to do what is necessary if that is not the right guy? So you don't have to worry about them hurting you, because the moment I see some hurt coming, I'm going in the other direction. So I am open to the forces. I am open to whatever the answer is for me, and I stopped trying to tell the life force what the answers were.

And so I live the answer.

The world will drown out the voice of God. The world will drown out your intuition.

God speaks first in the whisper. It first gives you just a little, hmm. And if you can learn to trust yourself, it means you can handle anything.

Delight in it, you are lifted by it.

And before you go, I want to share some words with you that could not be more true. You right now, exactly as you are, are enough and fully worthy. You are worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams, and all the unconditional love in the world. And it's an honor to welcome you to each episode of the Jamie Kern-Lima show here. I hope that you'll come as you are and heal where you need, blossom what you choose, journey toward your calling, and stay as long as you'd like, because you belong here.

You are worthy. You are loved. You are love. I love you. And I cannot wait to join you on the next episode of the Jamie Kern-Lima show.

Who you spend time around is so important, as energy is contagious, and so is self-belief. And I'd love to hang out with you even more, especially if you could use an extra dose of inspiration, which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter. that's also a love letter to you, delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to JamieKernLima.com to make sure you're on the list, and you'll get your one-on-one with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you. If you're tired of hearing the bad news every single day and need some inspiration, some tips, tools, joy, and love hitting your inbox, I'm your girl.

Subscribe at JamieKernLima.

com or in the link in the show notes. This show is presented solely for entertainment purposes only. It's not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, professional coach, or other qualified professional.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and conversation together, and I am so grateful to be on this journey with you. And did you know? for every episode of the Jamie Kern Lima show, there are a set of special, prompt questions just for you to help you on your journey of aha moments and revelations in your own life from each episode. Make sure you join my free email newsletter at JamieKernLima.com to get them sent to you each week. And each episode is meant to be evergreen and packed with timeless life lessons.

So you can go back and listen to past episodes you perhaps haven't heard yet, as we are going on this incredible journey of building self-worth and living our best lives together.