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"It is a warm summer day in Manhattan, and I am trying to quiet myself enough to write the toughest document of my life and let go of the grandiose concept of &amp;amp;#8220;me&amp;amp;#8221; long enough to just be real with myself, Starlet Marie from Trenton, New Jersey. So where do I begin? I could get all Freudian on you and start with my parents&amp;amp;#8212;but that would be too easy. I could also start in the summer of 2000, when I was a cohost on The View and the first media stories about my weight started to surface, but that, too, would be too easy. So why don&amp;amp;#8217;t I start on the day that changed how I would physically appear to the world and would force me to face the reasons such drastic steps needed to be taken&amp;amp;#8212;August 19, 2003. This is the day I lay in a pre-op room of a hospital, staring at the brightly lit ceiling, being prepped for gastric bypass surgery. I hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t gotten much sleep the night before. I was so angry: How had I allowed myself to get to 307 pounds? I could clearly remember the days when I&amp;amp;#8217;d considered myself fly and curvaceous. Funny&amp;amp;#8212;or sad&amp;amp;#8212;how we &amp;amp;#8220;thick&amp;amp;#8221; girls can justify being excessively overweight. It was something I&amp;amp;#8217;d been doing all my life. I grew up in public housing, so money was tight, but there was always plenty of good food on the table. My mother was from the South; her running commentary was that Julia Child didn&amp;amp;#8217;t use enough butter. She loved to make Grandma&amp;amp;#8217;s biscuits, Aunt Lib&amp;amp;#8217;s fried cabbage and her famous banana puddin&amp;amp;#8217;. Although we were on the cusp of poverty, my mother was a phenomenal woman who never let her girls go without. Sunday dinner seemed to take place every night, and no one ever said, &amp;amp;#8220;Stop&amp;amp;#8212;you&amp;amp;#8217;ve had enough.&amp;amp;#8221; In my home, exercise was not discouraged, but it wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t emphasized, either. I was a great student, but I almost failed physical education because I hated the very thought of exercise. I had never thrown a ball, run for a ball or caught a ball in my life and I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t interested in trying. By the age of 15 I was up to a size 14, but I thought, So what? A lot of my friends were the same size. And the man I loved most&amp;amp;#8212;my father&amp;amp;#8212;thought his girls were the most fabulous creatures on the planet. While I thank my parents for the confidence they managed to instill in me, in hindsight I wish someone had shouted: &amp;amp;#8220;Put that fork down and get active!&amp;amp;#8221; In 1991, I left my career as a senior assistant district attorney in Brooklyn to start a new one on television as legal correspondent for NBC News. On day one, it was clear they had never seen anything like me before: I was big, bold and outspoken and I looked nothing like your typical television correspondent (blond, blue-eyed and Twiggy-esque). But I was determined to fit in. With the new job came a new social life. Every other weekend I would throw a party just to be in the mix. Even though I claimed to be just fine with my weight, I saw how other women were treated like the girlfriend, while I was treated like the good friend. To compensate for my insecurities, I spoke louder and ate more: Whenever I felt lonely, a Double Whopper with cheese became my friend. If I felt sad, six strips of bacon made me feel better. Soon I was up to 225 pounds, which, when you are 5&amp;amp;#8217;5&amp;amp;#8221; and lazy and sedentary, is neither fly nor curvaceous, but I convinced myself I was phat, not fat. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve tried to track where the real out-of-control behavior began; it seemed to be around my fortieth birthday, March 24, 2002. I gained 75 pounds over the course of the next 17 months. (In college I had started to take notice of my weight and pretended to set 25-pound limits.) Eventually I just gave up. By then, I had been on The View a few years and had all the material trappings of success, but I still felt a void inside. Many of my girlfriends were getting married and starting their own families. I refuse to say I got fatter because I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have a man; that does a disservice to single and satisfied women everywhere. But I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t just alone&amp;amp;#8212;I was lonely. I, too, wanted someone to share my life with, but deep down I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t feel worthy. In truth, I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t meet half of the requirements that were on my list for a mate. I began to surround myself with yes-people and spent my private time eating and shopping. My weight gain began to take a physical toll: I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t breathe without sounding winded; walk without getting tired; sleep without snoring; or take a flight without using a seat belt extender. I pretended not to see how big I was getting&amp;amp;#8212;but not only did I see it, I was disgusted by it. I also pretended not to see the side looks and smirks from friends and strangers, or to comprehend the backhanded compliments I often received, such as, &amp;amp;#8220;You have such a pretty face.&amp;amp;#8221; (I knew they really wanted to add, &amp;amp;#8220;for a woman of your size.&amp;amp;#8221;) Each mean-spirited comment hurt, but I reacted as I was trained to do as a prosecutor standing before a hostile judge: &amp;amp;#8220;Square your shoulders, Star; speak louder, Star; show them they can&amp;amp;#8217;t hurt you.&amp;amp;#8221; Through it all, food was there to comfort me. Food never judged me&amp;amp;#8212;even when I judged myself. We African American women are taught to be proud of our curves, full breasts and shapely hips. I used to look in the mirror and take pride in my figure, but that was when I was legitimately a full-figured woman. I&amp;amp;#8217;d gradually gone from full-figured to morbidly obese. Finally, one of my dearest friends sat me down, looked me in the eye and said, &amp;amp;#8220;So, what are we going to do about your weight?&amp;amp;#8221; She knew my weight was a subject no one dared mention, but she didn&amp;amp;#8217;t care&amp;amp;#8212;she loved me too much, she said, to allow me to continue killing myself. While it was easy to deny the little voice inside my head, I found it impossible to deny my friend&amp;amp;#8217;s. I knew in my heart that her love and respect for me were pure. I cried; I got angry&amp;amp;#8212;but eventually I took the first step and walked into a doctor&amp;amp;#8217;s office. The night before the surgery, I convinced myself that afterward everything would be fine and I could get on with the rest of my life. I had no idea that before I could move on, I would have to face the present and the past as they were, not as I wished them to be. A few years ago, I wrote, &amp;amp;#8220;Living in truth means living in confrontation.&amp;amp;#8221; I admit that when asked about my obvious weight loss over the past four years, I was intentionally evasive. Lying was never an option for me, so I called it a &amp;amp;#8220;medical intervention,&amp;amp;#8221; which was true, but it was really a pathetic attempt to tell only the truth I could handle at the time. Although I&amp;amp;#8217;d shared my decision with friends, family and my colleagues at The View, I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t ready to invite the world into my process for a number of reasons: First, I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t know if the surgery would work. I had never stuck to a diet or committed to exercise for more than a month, and I had spent my entire adult life telling everyone that I was fine with the way I looked. I also never thought I&amp;amp;#8217;d have to explain it. I actually thought that I could say, &amp;amp;#8220;None of your business,&amp;amp;#8221; and people would say, &amp;amp;#8220;OK, she wants to remain private.&amp;amp;#8221; If that isn&amp;amp;#8217;t evidence of someone not living in truth, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know what is. Everything about me was already so public (mostly my own doing&amp;amp;#8212;talk about dumb!), so of course everyone wanted to know what I had done. I was also terrified someone would have a tragic result after emulating me without making an informed decision with her doctor. But the complete truth is, I was scared of what people might think of me. I was afraid to be vulnerable, and ashamed at not being able to get myself under control without this procedure. The surgery was a success from the beginning. There were no major complications, and within a few months, the weight started to melt away. What baffled me was that I was still consumed with the same anger, shame and insecurity as before. While I could physically see the positive benefits of the surgery, in my mind I still weighed 307 pounds. By the time of my initial weight loss, I was dating my future husband. I told him on our second date that I had undergone gastric bypass three months before. Instead of retreating, he made himself available whenever I needed to talk and helped me see truths that were often painful. About two years ago, my husband encouraged me to go public about my operation, believing that it would free me, but I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t do it. So with his encouragement and that of my surgeon, I began psychological therapy in the summer of 2005 and finally listened to someone else tell me the truth about myself for the second time in my adult life. My therapist specialized in people who were preparing for or had already had weight loss surgery, and her expertise was in behavior modification. We started with my need to control everything in my life yet not being able to control my weight. (The toughest part of the journey has been forgiving myself for not having the self-control I know I should have had, or admitting I needed help.) My therapist helped me discover I needed the adoration of others to feel good about myself. I learned that I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t control what others thought; that I had to establish my own truth; that no matter what my truth was, some people were still going to see things differently; and that if I knew the truth, that was all that mattered. So I decided it was time to share my complete weight loss story because I now know that transparency is not humiliating&amp;amp;#8212;it is humbling. Two years ago, while I was still on The View, a lady from Georgia wrote me a letter that took me to task for not &amp;amp;#8220;being there&amp;amp;#8221; for her as she faced her own health crisis. After I left The View, many women told me they felt empowered by my honesty over having been fired&amp;amp;#8212;but wished I was willing to be as honest about my weight loss. They were right: Gastric bypass surgery saved my life, and though I still believe wholeheartedly that health decisions are private and should remain between a doctor and his patient, keeping this decision private started to feel hypocritical and cumbersome. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t justify it any longer. In fact, true freedom and healing started to come when I began to talk about my surgery with strangers, around the time I left The View. I talked openly to people at the airport, to my taxi driver, to women in my exercise class, even to women in the middle of Target while shopping. We talked about my gastric bypass, their lap-band surgery, my breast lift and the loose skin some of us were dealing with. At first, I was terrified someone would sell me out to the tabloids, but as I began to trust the lessons I was learning about not being able to control everything, I was able to relax. And guess what? No one ever shared my story. How ironic: I was hell-bent on keeping the specifics of my weight loss private in an effort to maintain control&amp;amp;#8212;yet talking about my weight loss finally gave me the control I&amp;amp;#8217;d hungered for. In January 2007, I opened up Glamour to find a story called, &amp;amp;#8220;What No One Tells You About Weight Loss Surgery.&amp;amp;#8221; They printed a photo of me with a caption that said, &amp;amp;#8220;Star Jones Reynolds said only that &amp;amp;#8216;doctors intervened.&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; I put a mental bookmark on the article, determined to one day have the courage to explain why I&amp;amp;#8217;d decided to remain private about my surgery. And here I am. Gastric bypass is a very serious procedure with its own set of risks. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been afforded the luxury of consulting numerous doctors, specialists and colleagues who concluded that this surgery was the only way I could regain control of my life. It worked for me, but if you face a similar struggle, you&amp;amp;#8217;ll have to find what works for you. It isn&amp;amp;#8217;t an easy fix, and the recovery doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t end when you come out of anesthesia&amp;amp;#8212;that&amp;amp;#8217;s when the real work begins. Every day I am learning to let go of my insecurities and acknowledge that I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have all the answers, which is OK. My journey is far from over. I wish I could tell you that each day I awake renewed and on top of the world. That is not the case. More often than not, I awake cautiously, questioning whether I have the emotional reserves required to get me through the day. Four years later, I have been successful in maintaining a healthy weight and am proud of myself for that. I try to exercise regularly and use the portion control guidelines I was taught when I had the surgery. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not saying that in order to be happy, women need to be a certain size, but I am saying that we should all strive to be healthy. I still struggle with trying not to let comments about my body affect me. When I feel myself reverting to that place of insecurity, after a beat (or four), I gather myself, take a deep breath and remember what I know to be true: God did not bring me this far to leave me. I ask anyone who is struggling herself to try standing in the space that has been created for you by being braver today than you were yesterday&amp;amp;#8212;that is what I am trying to do every day. Star Jones is the executive editor and host of the new show, Star Jones, now on Court TV."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2007/08/star-jones-weight>