While the Oprah Show has been off the air for some time, I will never forget the episode where Oprah interviewed Valerie Bertinelli, Marie Osmond and Star Jones to share about their weight losses.

All three of these women are beautiful and all three women were successful in reaching their goal weights.  But you could still see the emotional pain on their faces talking about being overweight.

Valerie Bertinelli said, “I have obsessed about my weight in some sort of way all of my life.” And when asked if she felt like she had succeeded once and for all with maintenance, she said, “I won’t know if I’ve conquered maintenance until the day I die.”

Marie Osmond said, “I started dieting at the age of 10.”  She said that she tried, “Everything from diet pills to starving myself, to bulimia.  You name it, I tried it.”

Star Jones went from 300 pounds to 160 pounds.  She says, “I’m still 300 pounds in my head some days.”

Not only did all three women still look tortured, but Oprah was emotionally touched as well.  I sat there and shook my head in sadness.  My story is their story.  I tried everything to lose weight.  I spent forty years of my life obsessing about my weight and body image.  How many other millions of women share this same story – those in and out of the media spotlight?

When I talk to people from my past, friends or business associates and tell them about my story of how I struggled with weight and low self-esteem and how I overcame that struggle, every person has said, “I didn’t know you had all of those issues.  I didn’t know you went through everything you did.”

Of course no one knew!  We suffer in silence.  All of these women are bright, beautiful and talented.  This preoccupation of not being good enough has to come to an end.  This obsession with beauty and thinness and meeting unrealistic standards has to end.

We need to turn our self loathing into self love.  We need to take care of ourselves first instead taking care of everyone else (or we can’t care for anyone else).  If we need to lose weight, we need to lose weight because it means being healthy and happy, not losing weight at all costs.

The Freedom to Eat – 10 Secrets for Lasting Weight Loss and Inner Peace… for those who live in secret. Read the first two chapters for free: The Secrets We Keep and Goodbye Diets – Hello Freedom.