Hola!  I’m in NYC where I just finished taping another episode of TYRA.  The show we taped today won’t air until early January and so I can’t give too much away but let me tell you that it was very interesting and Tyra herself was at the top of her game.  

I have been a guest on TYRA 7 or 8 times.  Many of you know that she devoted an entire show to discussing ing my book, UNDER CONSTRUCTION: How I’ve Gained and Lost Hundreds of Pounds and Millions of Dollars when it was released (you can buy an autographed copy and help raise money for a fund that I started by going to the “books” section of my website and choose UNDER CONSTRUCTION-do it, you’ll enjoy the book and help a lot of people…perhaps a gift for some of the people on your holiday list?:).  And I know that a lot of you watched when after losing 170 lbs. I chronicled my reconstructive surgery on her show; 3 surgeries to remove a total of 10 feet of excess skin and I was able to help one of her viewers, a gorgeous woman named Tanya go through the same process.  I will always be grateful to Tyra for that.  

Since my transforming my own life I have made it my life’s work to help others to do the same.  I honestly could not care less what size you are, I just want you to be healthy and happy.  The issue of obesity is very complex and complicated by the horrible prejudice against obese children and adults.  I think that it is particularly complicated because there seems to be a war between the “I’m fine with myself the way I am and I’m fabulous” crowd and the “I want to lose weight” crowd.  Both sides are set up to oppose each other and the flames of dissent seem to be fanned by stand-up comics and many daytime talkshows.  But today on TYRA, I am proud to say that was not the case.

And here’s what I think about it….

As I write in my book, UNDER CONSTRUCTION, I am a BIG BELIEVER that you should love yourself, celebrate who you are, be proud and insist that the people you choose to include in your life respect you AS YOU ARE!  Be fabulous at any weight, wherever you are in your life.  Confidence is not something that is given to us or reserved only for the rich, skinny and famous.  Confidence is earned.  Confidence is a work in progress and everyday each of us must strive to be confident and love ourselves.  Life is difficult enough without you beating up on you.  A little love goes a long way when it comes to our inner monologue.  But I’m afraid that too often too many of us confuse being confident with being defiant.  What do I mean by that?  Being confident is celebrating who you are and being comfortable in your own skin but that should NOT come at the expense of your health.  “Love where you live but, be open to a little home improvement!”

I know that for many years I was very defiant about my weight.  At 320 lbs I appeared to have a great life; I was a working actress, a published author, a plus-sized model, I’d worked on successful and not-so-successful political campaigns, enjoyed a successful career as a stand-up comic and I always had wonderful men in my life and yet I constantly felt the need to tell anyone who would listen that I was “fat and fabulous”; “llenita pero sabrosa” (plump n juicy:).  And I was.  In all candor, “fat Jackie” had it goin’ on!  But in all honesty, “fat Jackie” was not healthy.  

I come from a family of people with big everything.  We have big dreams, big-loud laughs, big appetites for life, big hair, big mouths and big….well, you get the idea!  And that’s all great except that there is also big tragedy.  My mother died much too young from big livin’. One of my favorite aunts died very young from frankly, being big.  My Tia Pila was one of my s-heroes.  She was the kind of woman who made her own rules and lived life her way-which is exactly why I admired her.  I always admire people who have their own style with a dash of rebelliousness.  But my Tia Pila, like me and many in my familia suffered from morbid obesity.  We didn’t understand then that obesity is a disease which is 100% preventable and curable.  Maybe if we did, she’d be alive today to enjoy life in her own inimitable way.  I know I’d enjoy having her and my Mom here with me.  Unfortunately Tia Pila died as the result of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting.  Tia Pila was a little over 6 feet tall and fluctuated between 170-350 lbs.  She was an amazing Mariach singer with a brilliant singing career in Mexico.  I watched my entire life as she went up and down on the scale.  It was like clockwork; she’d put out a new album and starve herself before her tour to promote it, lose weight, go on tour and the minute that tour bus pulled up in front of my Nona’s (grandmother) house, she’d balloon back up because she had been essentially starving herself.  Finally after years and years of this, she just didn’t wake up.

But I did.

After my beloved Mother and my Tia Pila died suddenly and unnecessarily I had to recognize that I may have been “fat and fabulous” but I was not fat and healthy.  I began to look around and realized that I don’t ever see too many old people that are truly fat let alone morbidly obese.  And at 320 lbs. I had to admit that I was in fact, morbidly obese (100 lbs or more overweight).  It was a tough time for me and one that I know that so many can relate to.  As I often say I had felt my entire life that I’d been sentenced to a life sentence in “fat prison” for a crime that I didn’t commit-I was a chubby kid, a fat teen and then an obese woman-it was in my genes and the only life I knew.  But after much soul searching and a lot of research (obesityaction.org), I made the decision to end my own cycle of self-abuse and opted to undergo gastric bypass surgery.

I didn’t choose to lose weight because I hated myself or thought that I would be a better person if I were thin, quite the opposite;  I decided to cure my disease of morbid obesity by opting for the only known cure which is in fact bariatric surgery because I love my life and want to live a long, healthy and productive life.  My fear is that too many of us who suffer from obesity confuse self-confidence with defiance which keeps us trapped in bodies that are unhealthy.  Gastric bypass is not a miracle cure.  I always say that gastric bypass surgery didn’t clear me of the charges that lead to my life-sentence in “fat prison” but rather gave me unexpected parole.  But there are conditions to my parole and if I don’t follow them, I’ll get sent right back to fat prison so fast it isn’t even funny.  Today I have quit smoking,  I don’t eat refined sugar, I don’t drink carbonated beverages, I exercise regularly and I am grateful every single day for the healthy, active and much easier life that I enjoy as the result of losing and keeping 170 lbs off for more than 4 years.

You see after being a guest on TYRA today I am reminded that fabulous is not determined by the size of my ass, it is determined by the quality of my life.  And I choose to live healthy, happy and fabulously!

Here’s to you and your life being healthy, happy and fabulous!