Slimmed-down: celebs tell how they did it

Jet, Dec 23, 2002

There's nothing wrong with your TV set--Al Roker really does look different.

That's because he has lost an amazing 100 pounds. The NBC weatherman who once weighed 320 pounds is among the growing number of celebrities who have slimmed down and are now revealing how they did it.

These celebrities will be ready when the New Year rolls around. They're in shape, they look better and say they feel better than ever.

Roker says he underwent gastric bypass surgery. His wife, Deborah Roberts, a correspondent for ABC's "20/20", had interviewed singer Carnie Wilson in 1999 about her own gastric bypass surgery, and suggested it to Roker.

The surgery reduces the stomach from the size of a football to an egg. Roker was reluctant to undergo the surgery, believing it "is embarrassing--the ultimate admission of failure. You don't want to talk."

He observes the challenges of losing weight during an interview with the Gannett News Service. "In this country, if you have an alcohol problem or a drug problem you can get treatment. If you have a weight problem, it's lack of willpower. `Just push away from the table, tubby, and you'd lose that weight.' But you can stop drinking. You can stop sticking a needle in your arm. You cannot "not" eat."

Hip-hop performer and producer Missy Elliott is riding on the top of the charts with her latest hit album Under Construction. And she is indeed under new construction.

A native Portsmouth, VA, Missy has struggled with weight for most of her life, "My doctor gave me the `Lose weight or you're to have a stroke.'"

After drastically changing her diet and adopting a regular exercise routine in mid-1999, Missy began shedding weight, and by the summer of 2002, she had lost 50 pounds. She sticks to a low sodium diet and works out on the treadmill about four times a day.

This past October, she showed off her slimmed-down medium figure in her sizzling video Work It, which has become her biggest hit yet.

She's having fun with her new look. "Don't I look like a Halle Berry poster?" she raps on her new hit, Work It.

For Samantha Ivy Burton, the 27-year-old daughter of legendary song-stylist Nancy Wilson, it was a recovery program for food addiction in Los Angeles, that helped her slim down.

She weighed more than 400 pounds when she started the program in May 2001 and within one year's time she has knocked off about 300 pounds. Today, the aspiring 5-foot-9 R&B and pop singer weighs 155.

"They deal with the issues behind why you eat--all the way from your childhood to your adulthood," she explains. "And you are given a food plan which is basically three meals a day, no snacks lot, of fluids Food in the right proportion. You don't eat sugar at all, no fried foods, no white flour."

She eats plenty of fruit for breakfast, along with a protein and shredded wheat cereal. For dinner, she might eat six ounces of meat, some type of protein and two vegetables and a grain, she explains.

She stresses that overweight people must address why they are eating so much. That's the first step, she believes. "We have to get over our issues of eating food. It's not about the food. We are going to food for other reasons. Look at this like any other addiction. People who are obese, we see there is a problem in our lives.

With alcoholism and drug addiction, you don't see the problem manifest. But when someone is obese, it is written all over their body and face. You can't hide that."

She reveals that her eating overboard was due to a "lack of self love, looking for love from other sources, using food to replace that."

She notes that she felt the pressure of growing up in the limelight, the daughter of one of the world's most acclaimed entertainers. "Being a child of a celebrity is a lot of pressure. I wasn't prepared mentally for it."

She says her mom is proud of her. "She is just thrilled with this. This is what she always wanted for me to be happy with my body and just being a woman."

Samantha has gone from a size 32 to a size 8. "I was a size 14 at age 7. Now I am size 8. I am smaller now than when I was 7 years old," she laughs.

She is maintaining her svelte figure with a non-strenuous exercise program that includes brisk walking, lifting light weights and yoga.

The key to her recovery from food addiction was her faith in God. "It took me going to God and it still takes that daily," Samantha says.

Hit singer Kelly Price, whose much-anticipated album Priceless is set for release in March, has shed 100 pounds.

"I decided to lose weight after both my mother and mother-in-law were diagnosed with breast cancer," Kelly reveals. "I went to my doctor and he laid it on the line for me. He said I was at high risk for high blood pressure and heart attacks. He looked me in the eyes and said, `You don't need to gain another pound.' I was crying like a baby. But he said, `You have to do something about you.' So I did."

She recalls, "I lost weight by walking. I changed my lifestyle. I gave up fried foods, cut back on starches and red meat. I had to start taking vitamins and slowly get into a regular exercise routine."