In the January issue of O:The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey, the media mogul, bares all about her recent weight gain. "I'm mad at myself," writes Winfrey, who says she gained 40 pounds in four years.  "I'm embarrassed. I can't believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I'm still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, 'How did I let this happen again?'" The cover of the magazine posts that question in blaring headline type while showing a dual image: Winfrey at her fittest in 2004 at 160 pounds and as she is today, weighing 200 pounds. Inside she writes in the eight-page spread: "I didn't just fall off the wagon. I let the wagon fall on me. This past year, I took myself off of my own priority list. I wasn't just low on the list, I wasn’t even on the list."  Winfrey admits to missing meditation and her daily workout sessions and just not eating right. As the weight creeped on, the most powerful woman in Hollywood felt more powerless than anything. She posed for face, not body shots, for the covers of her magazine out of embarrassment. And almost cancelled the Cher and Tina Turner performance taping in Las Vegas on her show because she "felt like a fat cow."

Winfrey has had a public battle with her weight gain and loss. In 1988, wearing a pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, she rolled out 67 pounds of animal fat on a scale to her television audience, the equivalent to the amount of weight she lost on the medically supervised diet called Optifast. But by 1991, she had gained the weight back and vowed to "never diet again," opting instead to revamp her lifestyle choices. "My greatest failure was in believing that the weight issue was just about the weight," Winfrey told PEOPLE magazine then. "It's about not handling stress properly. I've been dieting since 1977. And the reason I failed is that diets don't work. I tell people, if you're underweight, go on a diet and you'll gain everything you lost plus more. Now I'm trying to find a way to live in a world with food without being controlled by it, without being a compulsive eater. That's why I say I will never diet again." In 1996 she enlisted personal trainer Bob Greene to help put her back on track. She got fit, ran a marathon, and kept the weight off for some time.

Ironically, last year, in the April 2007 issue of O, Winfrey wrote to readers and explained on Good Morning America that  she "blew out her thyroid due to stress. My body was turning on me. 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. (Most people gain weight. I did! Twenty pounds!)." Winfrey explains that when that happened, she took off a full month and committed herself to doing absolutely nothing and started to feel better after 14 days. But because her thyroid was out-of-balance ignited fear in her. "I had a fear of working out and was so frustrated I started eating whatever I wanted—and that's never good."

Over 59 million Americans suffer from Thyroid problems. While Winfrey has never fully diviluged that specific type of Thyroid disease she suffers from, medical experts say her condition sounds very much like a classic flare-up of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease, and the most common cause of an underactive thyroid. In Hashimoto's, antibodies slowly destroy the thyroid gland's ability to produce thyroid hormone, which is essential to metabolism and energy. With Hashimoto's thyroiditis, it's not uncommon for someone to go through a brief period of hyperthyroidism—a "last gasp" of the thyroid, so to speak, as it is failing—before the thyroid slows down for good and becomes chronically underactive (hypothyroid). All the more reason for women who suffer from this condition to never let up on "me" time and take more proactive steps to alleviate the condition. Winfrey's message to her readers this time isn't about losing weight, "it's losing and regaining control of your life," Susan Reed, the editor-in-chief of O, told WWD. Winfrey's story will jumpstart "Oprah's Best Life Week," a weeklong series on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" beginning January 5, which will take viewers through five days of advice on health, spirit, money and relationships to guide them through the new year, with additional wellness info on Oprah.com.

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