The 3 things in common in Oprah's Dramatic Weight Loss Winners

Yesterday on Oprah, she and her favorite fitness guru, Bob Greene of The Best Life Diet, who by the way just turned 50 and looks really good, chatted with some people who had lost dramatic amounts of weight. Of the guests, the weight loss ranged from 530 pounds to about 160.

Oprah had each guest tell their "Before" story which included a picture of the person at their heaviest, and then she asked them what their secret was to losing all the weight. Each guest had their own unique story but what I found interesting is that I could see about 3 common themes that resonated from every guest's story.

• Each gained the enormous amount of weight in the first place because of some emotional driver. A primary emotional driver was loneliness and feelings of isolation. The fatter the person got, the more they were treated like they were invisible. Not shocking given that people can be very cruel to the obese. Only one guest talked of a Thyroid issue, and her getting to 600 pounds in the first place was not because of an under active Thyroid.

• Most had a problem with night eating or night binging, and consuming massive amounts of sugary foods. One woman even ordered herself a 3-tiered wedding cake and ate the whole thing with milk in 2 days. If I were a shrink, I'd say that she got that cake and ate because it was a symbol of marriage and family something she desperately wants to bring sweetness into her life but feels she couldn't have that so she eats the whole cake to stuff the painful feelings.

• When asked what their secret was each spoke of some tactic like cutting out sweets or exercising more, but from their body language, and the way they radiated in their new bodies, I believe the real secret for each was that they were ABSOLUTELY DONE with being obese emotionally, mentally and physically, and they took action. Success in anything is achieved when what you say, what you think, and what you do are all in alignment, and for each one of these dramatic weight loss winners, they each had the formula down.

...the real secret for each was that they were ABSOLUTELY DONE with being obese...

Now Oprah wouldn't be Oprah if she didn't give away some really cool gifts at the end of the show to each of the weight loss guests, and I have to honestly say I was jealous. Each got their choice of a Gym level not Home level  Treadmill, Elliptical, or Weights machine from LifeFitness, the people who make the best cardio equipment. My gym just bought a whole bunch of new LifeFitness equipment and these pieces are so well designed it makes you want to workout longer.

In retrospective, watching the show was not only inspirational but it was also evidence of just how much power and influence our emotions have in our weight loss success or failure. In fact, the more I think about it, the emotions should be the very first thing addressed when planning any weight loss program because planning food and exercise is not rocket science, but figuring out the emotional triggers that cause the overeating, the not exercising, and general not taking good care of oneself is what will make or break the achievement of getting back into those skinny jeans.