Free Shine by Star Jones Reynolds

about them, it’s about you. When you hear of the greatest shoe sale on the planet—I’m talking $9.99 for everything in the store—you don’t wait for a partner.
I’m self-conscious about the way I look. Focus on the way you feel. I didn’t see how bad I was looking till I started to really feel bad. Howdoes your body feel? The moment your body feels better, I guarantee you will look better. If nothing else, it will put a smile on your face, and that already makes you prettier.
    An Interesting Finding
    A few years ago, Harvard University released the results of a fifty-year landmark study of the factors that go into a happier life. The study was reported in a book called Aging Well, and it offered the top seven factors that predict healthy aging. Not surprisingly, regular exercise figured prominently among those seven factors. The study also found that exercise is easier and more enjoyable with a partner, although not having a partner is not a good excuse for avoiding exercise. When you meet Mr. Right, he could be your jogging partner—something to look forward to. Check back in three months with me to see where you are. I’m still working hard at it, so let’s do it together. Let me know your successes and your failures. Let me know how you feel—e-mail me at www.StarJones.com and I’ll be your partner!
    A Not-So-Pretty Finding
    This may not be the right note on which to end this section, but it has to be said.
    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth shall set ye free: not everyone wants you to be slim, trim, healthy, and happy. I think there’s some faulty psychological dynamic that tells some people they can vent their hidden rages, their own insecurities, even their too virtuous pity on fat people. When you hear people in the media or even acquaintances making fat jokes, you know it’s because something in them feels more strong and victorious if they have scapegoats to pick on. Fat people are their anger outlet. You hear the fat anger from mean-spirited media people, and you might even hear subtle antifat comments in your own circle of acquaintances. But what you never expected is anger directed at you because you lost weight!
    You know what? You will hear this from some you thought were friends.
    We recently had two young women on The View who were the subject of a 2005 New York magazine article called “Suddenly Skinny.” Both of these young women had undergone some sort of weight-loss surgery. Both of them were really health oriented because they had been ill from their excess poundage. One woman had a knee replacement in her future if she didn’t lose the weight, and good-bye to her job as an active police officer. The other woman had been big all her life, and her mother had died from complications of obesity. She also knew that she was on a path to trouble.
    One of the young women was very, very attractive. She had this really beautiful face, a gorgeous smile, and long, luscious hair. But she never embraced how pretty she was, and she didn’t live her life like “I’m a pretty girl.” When she finally lost weight, her confidence zoomed up—that often happens. But inexplicably to some, she revealed on our show that a number of her friends stopped speaking to her or simply weren’t nice to her anymore.
    One of my gorgeous, always-has-been-slim cohosts asked in amazement, “But why would that happen?”
    I knew why. I’ve been there, done it. So, I piped in and said, “They’ve turned on you, Miss Marie, because they were more comfortable putting you in the fat, lonely, and single category and box for the rest of your life. They would have been happy with that.”
    “Absolutely correct!” said our guest.
    So, this is what I have to tell you: very few things are universal with people who’ve lost weight, but that experience is universal.
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    Absolute
    Never allow anyone to place a period in your life.
    Control the punctuation—it’s your life.
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    You will have lots of