Bob Greene's Best Life Diet

0:00Through 25 seasons, 4 ,561 episodes, I believe The Oprah Winfrey Show is one of the greatest classrooms in the world. I really never thought of it that way. The aha moments, the breakthroughs, the connections, the occasional ugly cry. I'm missing so terribly. I miss it every single minute. The LOLs, the moments that mattered, the eye-opening life lessons. Never allow them to take you somewhere else. I'm bringing them back. It's time to open the vault. I've personally chosen these classic episodes to share with you again. Every single person you ever will meet shares that common desire. They want to know, do you see me?

0:47Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? You are listening to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the podcast. So this is the year. It's the year to finally end your struggle with weight. And I know what it feels like to struggle, but this is the year to stop lying to yourself about your weight and what it means. My friend, fitness super coach Bob Green is here to unveil his weight loss program. It is called The Best Life Diet. And Bob's plan is right on the cuffs of what I believe is a food revolution. Please welcome Bob Green.

1:32Hello, Bob. Hello. No, I would have to say that when I met Bob over 14 years ago, his passion was changing the way food manufacturers produce their food. That's true. I was an annoying little kid. Yeah. At 8 years old, I was telling my family, do away with that, don't do this, we should be eating more of this. At 8 years old, they don't listen to me. Most other people do. So you grew up to continue to be annoying. That's right. Yes. To you. To me. Bob has a new baby, and his wife also has the baby. That's Bob. And her name is Kylie, and that is 10 minutes after she came out. Ten minutes old right there.

2:10Ten minutes old. She's a beauty. She is. Just the center of your life, and that's all I think about. The last time you saw me, what was I doing? The last time I saw him, Rania had pumped. Bob was sitting there holding the baby and beating the baby. Beating the baby. And every time I come, he's staring at her. I'm really surprised that you've had this kind of reaction. I didn't expect it from you. It's all you think about. You know, I have the most exciting launch of my career. I'm so excited about the Best Life Diet. And still, all I can think about is my daughter. And... What? ...paying for her future tuition.

2:42Well, Bob's Best Life Diet is broken down into three easy-to-follow phases. And I know, God, everybody knows you watched me for 21 years struggle with weight. But before you begin, I have to tell you, I don't struggle anymore because I've been working on this plan for the past what? Well, technically 15 years. But and.

3:04No, I got revived. No, there is a point in that in the key to the best life diet is most diets shock you with something and they're really hard to follow. Maybe you can follow them for six months. This is progressive. A lot of us are addicted to salt, sugar, fat. progressively increasing your exercise and progressively changing what you eat is the key. And you've done that. Yes, I have. You've done it successfully. Yeah, and people say that I yo-yo up and down. I really haven't. You don't. That's the amazing thing. You'll pull out. Yeah. Yeah. You had... Yeah. But I've never been as fat as I was when you first saw me since I lost weight the first time.

3:40When I first met Bob, I was 237 pounds. And I write about it in the Ford and Best Life. People forget all the time that you essentially lost... So I never put that back on. Close to 80, 90 pounds for good. There's been a couple of times when something was going on in your life, which is understandable. Not pop up. Yeah, but pretty much successful. But before we begin, Bob says, get out your scale. Oh, Lord, that's a moment. That's a moment. I know what that's like to weigh yourself, because oftentimes it sneaks up on you. You remember when I first met you, I did not know I was that fat until I saw myself walking down the street and I thought a fat person was following me.

4:13And I looked in the window.

4:19That was myself. It's true. The problem with not weighing, in fact, you were fine getting on the scale to start out, and that's really important. I do want people to weigh themselves. It's very important to break this cycle of denial. And come to church with it. And deal with reality. And face reality. Okay. Phase one of the best life diet is the Rev Up, and it starts with a month of not dieting. Isn't that exciting? It's a month of not dieting. And what we want you to do is start preparing your body and preparing your mind for the transformation that's going to come with the best life plan. So what happens in this phase?

4:54Well, the key is I want you to weigh yourself, but then you're not going to look at the scale for at least a month. Some folks a little bit longer than that. And the point of that is we're going to get you moving a little more. And the other point is changing how you eat or the mechanics of your eating, not what you eat at this point. That's saved for phase two. Okay. So phase one is really about get a starting weight. Okay. So I'm watching you right now, Bob. I'm going to pull out the scale. If I don't have one, I'm going to go get one. That's right. Okay. I'm going to weigh myself. Write it down.

5:23And then I'm going to start moving. You're going to put that scale away for at least a month. Okay. So in phase one, Bob says, there are things that you need to add to your diet and something you might want to eliminate. So what is that? Well, it's a tough one. You won't like to hear this because you love wine, but you're going to go off... I love wine. Well, but you did a good job of this. Come off of alcohol for that month. Trust me, you can add it back at a later date in the diet. I have a system where you can add any food that you really love back to this diet. There's not one food that you can never have.

5:54Okay, so one month, not one food you can never have, which I know because I'm on this planet. It's great, even croissants. You just can't have the entire box. And every day. And every day. But okay, so we have weighed ourselves and we're going to start moving. You're going to drink water. It's important. Most people are dehydrated. There's a lot of new studies out there that say, oh, that water thing is overblown. It's not needed. It fills you up. And to be honest with you, it assists fat metabolism. And it assists everything that's going to help you achieve your weight. What is the right amount?

6:23You know I don't like it. Well, it's another point of this diet. If you're active, obviously, you're going to need more water, as you're going to need more calories. No, I try to get through this whole glass every day on the show, and that gets me two down. Bare minimum is 48 ounces, six 8-ounce glasses. throughout the day. Not a problem for most people. Yeah. And then you've eliminated alcohol. Okay. Add a vitamin supplement. What would that be? A vitamin supplement is really like an insurance policy. When you start restricting calories, which you have to do if you're going to lose weight. You have to restrict calories.

6:55There's no way around it. There's no secret. Don't fall for something that says, oh, you know, you're going to be able to eat whatever you want. You can eat as much as you want. You can. Unless you're a rabbit. So, good idea to add a vitamin supplement. Okay. And this is in phase one? It's all in phase one. No, stop eating two hours before bedtime. I want you to spread out, have three solid meals and at least one snack, if not two, depending on how active you are. And the key, as you know, and so many people reach their goal... This is life-changing. It's life-changing. Let's have some little bells ring when you say this.

7:21This is singularly the best thing you can ever do if you're going to lose weight. Tell them, Bob. Stop eating at least two hours prior to your bedtime. And it's not only just for weight loss, it's one of the healthiest things you can do. And this is why I'll go a step further than that. I will say, you need to give yourself a time. My time is 7.30. If you give yourself a time and you say, I will not eat past this time, not a fruit, not a nut, not a grape nut, not a cherry, nor an oak, then... Then, then, then your body has a chance to have that, that sensation that Bob says is your body really eating fat.

7:57Your body has a chance to feel like that little kind of nagging thing, I wish I could have something. Well, that is when your fat cells are going, eat me, eat me, eat me. And if you don't eat at that time... It translates to weight loss. That's how you lose weight. That's how you lose weight. I stop at 7.30. The other day, it was 7.32. Boy, I was cramming it down. Uh-uh. 7.32! I gotta eat! Trust me. I've been with you. When it's 7 o 'clock, she flies home so she can get that last meal in. Yeah. One thing I now know for sure is that if you are overweight, you've got to ask yourself. This is one of the things that happened to me in the very beginning of my relationship with Bob because those of you who saw me on the air getting bigger and bigger and bigger, I thought I just liked potato chips.

8:42I thought I just liked fried foods. I thought it was really all about the food. But I learned soon after working with Bob that it really wasn't that and I personally did not want to face that because I thought I was having a pretty good life. And I would say to Bob, I'm really doing really well. Don't you watch television? And I didn't. And he didn't watch television. He didn't watch it. He wasn't watching it. But I had to ask myself the same thing, that every person who ever really loses weight or conquers any addiction, and I'm truly a food addict, is what kind of life you really want. That is the question to ask yourself.

9:15That's why this is the year for you to make this change and no longer struggle with it. The question is, what kind of life do you want to have? And I started at the beginning of this show saying, stop lying to yourself. I mean, if you don't think that you're ready, that's why the first month is about getting your mind ready for the transformation. Because what I have learned through working with Bob is that every time you say to yourself, you're going to start on Monday and you don't, that's a little lie. And yourself, your consciousness, feels the same way as other people feel when you lie to them.

9:45So eventually, you don't even trust yourself. And I learned that through working with you. And you support the realization that you're not worthy of what it is you're after, which in this case is weight loss. So the best life plan is really, It's an opportunity to look at your whole life. That's why you have little light pictures on here. Yeah. And whose dog is that, Bob? That's Oprah's dog on the back. Also, you might want to show the back. Yeah. This is Bob lounging with my dogs. You look so dog-friendly. You look so, yeah. This is the dog you're hugging on the cover that you won't allow in your house, but okay.

10:21I admit it. Alicia Ashe says that she spent 14 miserable years hiding from the truth. I put on the weight when I started having children. With my first child, I gained 100 pounds. After the birth of her second child, Alicia carried a dangerous 267 pounds on her tiny 4 '11 frame. Still, she says, she remained in denial about her weight. If I saw someone else bigger, I thought, well, I'm not that bad.

10:54But after 14 years, Alicia's out-of-control eating habits were taking their toll. I ate fast food every single day. Hamburgers, french fries, chicken, ice cream, whatever. I just, I wanted to eat. I felt miserable. She rarely left the house. I was not exercising, not one day. I didn't have any energy. I didn't want to walk out to the mailbox. I wouldn't have walked up the street. I was tired all the time. She chose work that kept her hidden from other people. I took a job cleaning houses so I wouldn't have to work in the public. I was just too ashamed. Her legs were at all times covered in long skirts.

11:38I wouldn't wear pants for 13 years. At least we wouldn't go to the park with the kids. We didn't go to company parties or functions. Some of the family gatherings we would miss. I felt people stared at me when we went to restaurants to eat. It was like I didn't belong there. Like I didn't need to eat. Then came the cruelest moment of all. I went for a job interview for a radio station, and I didn't think it mattered how it looked, but the man said, I can't use you here. And I asked him why. He said, you're just too big. So Alicia calls that moment her rock bottom. Slowly, she put one foot in front of the other foot and began following Bob Green's program.

12:30And Alicia lost 137 pounds. That's a person. Come on out, Alicia.

12:42She looks great. She looks great. I know what that feels like. You look beautiful. Thank you. You look beautiful. Just beautiful. And the biggest change that you made? I started with the eating habits, because that was my problem, was eating. And I said, once I got that, it was on. Really? It was on. It was on. It was on. Yes. Well, Bob, thank you so much. Congratulations. Can you believe that? That's fantastic. That's wonderful. Have a seat. You look great. And Bob says that it's critical to make the emotional connection between how you feel and why you eat. He says that you need to answer three key questions, and those are?

13:21Well, the first one is, you know, why are you overweight? Why were you overweight? Just eating. And I think it was generational. That's all we did when we wanted to treat someone. We just went out to eat. We didn't go to the movies or anything like that. That's how you celebrate. Just go out to eat. You celebrate it with food. It's food. Next question. The next one is, why do you want to lose the weight? Healthy. And I wanted to teach my kids that. I wanted to be healthy. Well, the last one, is this the first time you attempted to lose weight? And if not, why weren't you successful in the past?

13:53I didn't get it right here first. I wanted something quick, diet pills or, you know, something that would work just like that. Yeah. There is no pill, because if there was, I would have it. Okay. So the third question is, why have I been unable to maintain weight loss in the past? Yeah, I'll explain that. When I'm working with someone, why are you overweight? I don't want, oh, my spouse would never allow that food, or my significant other doesn't want me at the gym all that time or working out. I want something deeper. Why are you overweight? I want an emotional tie. I want someone to physically say, you know what, I'm not living my life the way I need to be.

14:36That is a sign that that person is going to be successful. Bob had asked me when we first started working out the same things, questions he's asking of you in the Best Life Diet is, first you've got to ask yourself why you're overweight in the first place. And I was one of those people who thought that I just liked food. I thought that this, you know, I belonged to the clean plate club. I grew up that way. You're supposed to eat everything on your plate, thinking about the starving children of Africa or India, whatever, whatever it was your mother told you. I thought that's what it was, but that wasn't what it was for me.

15:05I think I was, for the first time, I dealt with the repressing my own emotions about, you know, my abuse as a child, my feelings about myself because of that. And so I was covering up myself and really building a wall around myself, even though I'm standing on television in front of people every day. And it almost always is deeper than you first think for the reasons why you eat. True? Absolutely true. So I want you to meet Julie Addick, just like some of you watching right now. Julie once believed that she would never be able to lose weight. I started to gain weight right after high school, going into college.

15:40It really is a sense of loneliness, like you're the only one who's going through this. Julie says her feelings of isolation fueled her out-of-control eating habits. I love ice cream and chips, a bagel with cream cheese, or a slice of two or three of pizza. The biggest exercise in the day was spoon to mouth and maybe walking down the hall at work. Her weight was at an all-time high. At my heaviest, I was 270 pounds. I would avoid looking in the mirror. I found that if I ignored it, it wasn't there. I felt like I didn't have control of my life. I was this fat slob who could not stop herself from eating.

16:20I felt unlovable. Who would accept a 270-pound woman in his life, in his bed? I just couldn't imagine there was someone who could take me as I was. For Julie, living her best life would mean taking a hard look at the overweight woman she had become. It's so hard to change. And I just didn't think I could do it, because I knew I was going to have to answer some questions, and I didn't think I was ready for that. So she started Bob Green's plan at 271 pounds. And as of today, she has dropped nine dress sizes and 120 pounds. Come on out, Julie. That's life-changing.

17:03Welcome. Thank you. My dress. Thank you.

17:09I marvel at this little dress, because it's not something you could even think about wearing when you're 200 pounds and over. I wouldn't even know where to have bought a dress like this. Yeah. Well, you told my producers that something Bob said really struck a chord. What was that? Well, sometimes we lack the motivation to do something. Yeah. But oftentimes you need to do it first, and then the motivation follows. And that's what I found over and over again. Because you had said that. I heard you said that one time. It's a snowball. If you start, everyone—it's the number one question I get, how do you stay motivated?

17:38because that's a person that allowed themselves to get in a situation they're not happy with. Just start. Just start and don't think about tomorrow. Think maybe a month out, two months out, or a year out. And guaranteed, if you can focus on waking up and taking small steps, your life will be different a year from now. That's what she did. That is what she did. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is the year to get healthy. And Bob's going to show us how to do that. And there are six foods that he says that we need to watch out for right now and replace for a time, right? First one is a soda.

18:14Yes, I want you to replace them. And if you want, you can add them back in the final phase. Okay. Foods with trans fats, because I had to get rid of my coffee creamer because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now they have coffee creamers without the trans fats. Okay. Okay. Fried foods. Oh, boy. I did a fried chicken the other day. Now, a lot of people are saying, well, okay, trans fats and fried foods, aren't they the same thing? They're not. Obviously, you can fry something, and there's so much focus now on trans fats, we're ignoring just fried food, which contains so much of... Couldn't you fry it in, like, a nice oil, like a canola oil?

18:47But the point is that it absorbs more calories. It's why I want you to replace it with some other alternatives. Okay, but you can put it back. You can. Yes. There's no food that is banned completely from this diet. I had a piece of fried chicken the other day that he dipped in buttermilk I had it, too. It was fantastic. Yeah, I thought you were in the kitchen with that. Okay. Then white bread. White bread. Again, there are such great choices that have the whole grains in them and the whole wheat in them, and basically that adds a lot more nutrition. Okay. And we're eliminating regular pasta for now.

19:19Yeah. And regular pasta is not considered a bad food. The way we eat it sometimes is. Our portions are higher. And I recommend substituting a product that we'll see later that is a whole grain pasta and it even adds omega-3s, which is fantastic. Yeah, I've had it. Okay, and high fat dairy products. What does that mean, ice cream? Well, ice cream would fall into that. Whole milk would fall into that. And if you've known anyone that, like myself, I grew up on whole milk, but then I went to 2%, and then I didn't miss anything. I went to 1%, and then I'm kind of stuck on 1%. I'll use a skim milk in maybe a smoothie, but when it comes to on my cereal, I stick with the 1%, and that's your choice on this diet.

19:56Okay, our next guest was forced to confront the hard truth about her weight when Bob Green himself gave her an unexpected call. I was very self-conscious about my weight growing up. When I was 11 years old, a boy teased me about being overweight and I was humiliated. That triggered my first diet. This cycle of extreme dieting and binging continued for decades. When I went to college, I thought if I majored in nutrition and dietetics that I would find the answer to weight loss. That actually made the pressure to maintain a low weight that much more, and I was going to quit the program. But Cindy didn't give up.

20:43She continued and even earned a Ph.D. in nutrition. In graduate school, my weight started skyrocketing. I became so desperate at one point that I became bulimic. But then fate stepped in. I was watching the Oprah show with Bob Green on weight loss. And I remember him looking into the camera and saying, if your life isn't working, change it. And it's calling you to make that change. When he said it, it reverberated in my soul. In a bizarre coincidence, Cindy got an added push. I got this phone call one day from an exercise physiologist, and he was looking for a dietician to edit one of his books.

21:29It wasn't until I hung up the phone and I thought, oh, my gosh, that's Bob Green. I knew from that moment on that my life was going to change. I was going to do whatever it took. And she did. Cindy lost 100 pounds. Bob has only spoken with Cindy by the phone or email. He's never met in person. So come on out, Cindy.

21:58Hello.