Oprah Winfrey calls Bob Greene “the answer to my prayers.” Greene says he so values his “very unusual and wonderful friendship” with Winfrey that she was the best person at his wedding.
Their relationship started 16 years ago, at a spa in Telluride where the talk show host sought a cure for her weight problems.
Greene didn’t simply put her on a diet and a treadmill; he challenged her to look at what was eating her emotionally.
“While I worked out, and changed what and how much I ate, managing the rest of my life became my real focus,” Winfrey wrote in the forward to Greene’s book “The Best Life Diet” (Simon and Schuster, 2006, $26 hardback, $15 paper).
A diet and exercise expert who’s a regular contributor to Winfrey’s show and magazine, Greene says the problem with diets is they don’t address the real issues people have with food: They use it, as Winfrey did, for comfort, not sustenance.
Greene will be in Denver on Saturday to speak at the Colorado Women’s Expo, where he will share some of the insights he’s gained about diet and exercise during the almost two decades he’s been in the industry. An exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer, Greene has a master’s degree from the University of Arizona and is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and American Council on Exercise.
In TV appearances, Greene looks like the vision of health, but his life is as much a juggling act as the next person’s. In a recent phone interview, he was back at his home in Florida (he also has a residence in Hawaii) after visiting his father, who recently had back surgery. Greene says he used to chide people who claimed parenting duties prevented them from getting exercise or eating well. “I have a child now, so I feel a little guilty about that,” he says. “The reality is your kids get habits more from home than from school, so you need to be the example.”
Greene’s education was in the science of exercise and diet, but he says Winfrey exposed him to a “different way of thinking that helped me professionally and personally.”
He has always been interested in psychology and through working with Winfrey began seeing how a person’s emotional life affects the ability to lose weight and be healthy.
Greene says his public talks deal more with motivation and human nature than how many calories to consume or crunches to perform.
“Where most people fall down is not their lack of knowledge about what they should eat and do, but in not pursuing the emotions behind overeating and looking at the rituals they had growing up.
“Diets are popular because people think if they just follow some rules they’re given, the weight will come off and they’ll be happy,” he says. “But happiness does not come from reaching a certain size or weight; happiness is the key to reaching that size.”
People need to look at their relationships with their family and friends, their career and with food. Eating, he says, can be a convenient way to mask what’s really going on in your life.
“We have to get much more fulfillment from waking up every day and doing some small things than from food,” he says.
Greene also stresses that being healthy requires being active. Many people had a negative experience with exercise growing up and aren’t comfortable with it. The key is finding an activity you like to do. “Don’t even profess starting a weight-loss program if you aren’t going to move more,” he says.
Greene knows the process of changing your diet, starting an exercise program and improving your health isn’t easy.
“You’re required to change your wiring, and not everyone is capable of that,” he says. “Change takes time, and that’s not only true of how our bodies work, but it’s also true of how our minds work.”
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697 or sbrown@denverpost.com
