My 67-Pound Weight Loss (1988)

By the time I heard about Optifast, in 1988, I'd tried just about every diet known to womankind. I thought Optifast—a fasting and supplement program—would be my final answer. I'd saved a pair of Calvin Klein jeans from my days of working in Baltimore, and my goal was to get back into those jeans.

For four solid months, I didn't eat a single morsel of food. When I started Optifast in July 1988, I was at 212 pounds. By fall, I weighed 145 pounds. Wearing my size 10 jeans, I pulled a wagon full of fat—representing the 67 pounds I'd dropped—onto the stage.

What I didn't know was that my metabolism was shot. Two weeks after I returned to real food, I was up 10 pounds. Since I wasn't exercising, there was nothing my body could do but regain the weight. As my friend Maya Angelou often tells me, "When you know better, you do better."

Seventeen years after that show, I know a whole lot better.