Oprah Reassures Us That It's Not Her Fault She Gains Weight

Everything Oprah touches, it turns to gold right? Well, not the cookies at least. As it turns out, O is claiming that it's not her fault for her recent weight gain of about 20 pounds. In the most recent issue of her magazine, she writes that she is dealing with hypothyroidism. No offense of anything, obviously Oprah has a really slow metabolism. Right?

"My body was turning on me," she wrote. "First hyperthyroidism, which sped up my metabolism and left me unable to sleep for days. (Most people lose weight. I didn't.) Then hypothyroidism, which slowed down my metabolism and made me want to sleep all the time."

Problems involving you thyroid have a direct effect on your metabolism if you are not familiar with it. Often time people who have problems involving their thyroid do not know it or it diagnosed very late in life. However, it is very easy to check for thyroid problems through simple blood tests. If you are getting your cholesterol checked, your doctor can use the same blood sample, just ask to be tested.

Now for my diva input. I feel for Oprah, really I do. My mother has a hypoactive thyroid, and when she should be losing weight with regular exercise and diet, it's much harder for her than someone like myself. However, I'm also 30 years younger. I think Oprah places so much emphasis on her diet and exercise that the public constantly looks to see how she is doing. It's her own personal life long battle. She will forever be a Yo-Yo dieter. She has so much money, and since she cannot keep off the pounds with personal trainers, chef's, all the plastic surgery she could ever want, etc... it seems kinda important for her to give us an explanation.

"If Oprah can't lose weight, what chance do I have?" some people may ask themselves. Well, Oprah has a thyroid problem, that's why. I think it's a silly excuse for her recent weight gain (which I did not, and still DO not notice). Is she trying to bring herself down to a level that her viewers can relate to because they can't relate to her on any other level?

Eating disorders, drug problems, rehab, medical conditions... celebrities seem to know how to garner publicity, and I'm sorry but I think this is just one of those for Oprah. Call me out, if you think I'm being too harsh, but let's face the fact: A lot of overweight people have thyroid problems. Oprah is not the first or the only one, so why is the media treating it like it's some epidemic.

Lastly, I would like to give a shout out to two of my friends in college who have hyperactive thyroids. If you don't have a friend with one, don't go looking for them. Cher and Caitlin are two of my favorite people in the entire world, however they can eat everything and anything they want, have WAY too much energy all the time and are a blast to hang out with. Cher used to bring extra large M&M bags to class and eat them through the lecture. After we'd go to starbucks and she would get a frappaccino and some cookie brownie thing. She one day decided to cut out pizza from her diet. She dropped 5 pounds in 5 days. Caitlin, would only eat bagels, pizza, chicken wings, and Joey Bags (A buffalo chicken cheese steak sub from Freddy's on Main Street) our senior year. She lost weight. Sounds awesome right? Not so much. One has to take an extremely expensive prescription every day. One has mini heart attacks in which her heart beats way too fast. There are many other issues that go along with their hyperactive thyroids that I am not familiar enough with to tell you all about, but thyroid problems, if detected, can be managed like most medical conditions.

By the way, Cher and Caitlin are both extremely skinny if you couldn't tell.