Why Oprah's Still Not Getting This Dieting Thing

She has doctors. She has access to personal trainers. She could buy Weight Watchers. And yet, Oprah Winfrey still has not overcome her weight challenges. Along her bumpy path of weight losses and gains, Winfrey has blamed familiar demons for her waistline angst. Those bad guys included a slow onslaught of health changes and depression. Yet, if we condense Oprah's reasons for "falling off the wagon" to the furtive truth, we have one overarching, yet heavily undermined diet devastating culprit- priority.

In a nutshell, Winfrey, and millions of people like her, regained the weight because keeping it off was not a priority. One reason for this could be Winfrey's fitness advisor, Bod Greene. This week, at Oprah.com, Greene offered frustrated dieters this counsel: "The key is to stick with it until you achieve your weight and health goals—that's my definition of a true success story."

In that seemingly helpful advice rests a fat fertilizer- "until". This word shortchanges all dieters' hope of long term weight loss. Diets, though demeaned by the masses, are still used by every living human being. A diet, as defined by Princeton University, is, "the usual food and drink consumed by an organism".

Thus, no matter if one's daily grub includes cottage cheese and oysters, or a Whopper and onion rings, she's on a diet. Moreover, for the rest of her life she will be on a diet. The problem is that most people think that they can be on a diet "until". "I can diet until, I lose 15 pounds, until my jeans fit, until my wedding day, until my photo shoot, until the reunion, until..."

"Until" is the simple concept that has ruined the whole process of weight loss. Diets do work. The problem is that most people use diets like chewing gum. They use it for a little while for oral pleasure, and then throw it out once they get bored. Then, replace that gnawing void with something else.

People switch to something new because their priorities change. If Oprah wants to lose weight and keep it off, she must establish this as a priority for life. As such, whenever she eats or exercises, somewhere in her mind, she must sense that she is being true to her weight and health priorities.

Priorities are not yokes, they are guidelines to smart decision making. Oprah gained weight because her decisions like, "Should I have seconds; Should I exercise today; Should I have that dessert?" became overly complicated as her priorities shifted. Health, stress and time constraints displaced the critical role that attaining and maintaining a healthy weight once had.

Perhaps Oprah will sharpen her focus and heed and the encouragement of wise people like F Scott Fitzgerald, who promised, "Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over."

Now, when Oprah gets "back on the wagon", she needs to look for signs of slippage on a daily and weekly basis. She can ask herself, "Are my daily decisions in line with my health priorities?" If not, she needs to make adjustments right away before she finds herself in a puddle of melted chocolate next to her "favorite things" bandwagon.