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Authors: Mika Brzezinski
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weight was making them think instead, This woman doesn’t have it together. She doesn’t even have the discipline to lose weight and get in shape .
And that’s basically what I said on that beautiful afternoon on Long Island Sound when I came clean about how I felt. At first, it looked like it was going to turn into a very turbulent day for a treasured friendship. I wasn’t sure she would ever speak to me again.
I told Diane, “I don’t really think that you are sitting around eating all day, but I do think you need to break your cycle of depending on fattening foods and start believing in yourself again. You’re not really hiding anything with all those black pantsuits. Everyone knows you have a weight issue.”
Telling Diane the truth about her weight, and using that toxic word obese to describe her, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I certainly didn’t do it to be a bitch, even if some people might have thought so. I did it because I want her in my life, and I was worried about her health. I also thought it was only fair for Diane to hear it from a friend. It’s what other people were thinking when she was on TV or when she got up on stage to give a speech.
If you are wondering, Why tell her the truth? , maybe that isn’t the right question. Considering how long it took me to raise the topic of weight, and what it was doing to her personally and professionally, it might be more helpful to ask, Why didn’t you say this ten years ago, when her weight was just becoming a problem? Why did you avoid it?
I wish now that I had talked to Diane much sooner. It would have been a lot easier for both of us.
When Diane took me up on the challenge to lose seventy-five pounds and we decided to write this book together, at firstshe was reluctant to tell her own story. But eventually we both decided that baring our souls was the way to set an example for others. No one is better off with silence. As Diane put it, “If we can start a dialogue between the two of us, maybe we can instigate a wider discussion. A national discussion. So I’m all in.”
Here is more about how Diane has experienced the struggle against food and overweight, in her own words.
Although Mika and I got to know each other a little while working as news anchors and reporters at rival stations in Connecticut, we really bonded when she was in labor with Carlie. That was one of the most profound experiences of my life. I don’t have kids, and my sisters live far away, so it was truly a once-in-a lifetime event; something I have never shared with anyone else .
No wonder Mika has remained special to me all these years later. But I have to be honest. She’s a little nuts. When she wanted to know if I would step in for her husband, Jim, if she went into labor while he was out of town, did she call me and ask for my help? Did she drop by the house? No, she ran into my husband, Tom, at a coffee bar one Sunday morning and asked him to run it by me .
She was still a couple of weeks away from her due date when I said yes. What I was really figuring was , What are the chances the baby will come while Jim is out of town? Yeah, right. I didn’t give the possibility of coaching her through labor much thought after that. The only thing I did think about was how Mika looked during her pregnancy, and that was sure frustrating to me. Even at nine months’ pregnant, she was thinner than I was. In those days, I was always thinking , What the hell can I wear that won’t make me look so fat?
A few days after I agreed to be her backup labor coach, Mika dropped a couple of books in my mailbox, including What to Expect When You’re Expecting. The books were still in the mailbox when she called our house Friday night. Jim was on a plane to New Orleans, and Tom and I had just polished off a pizza and a bottle of wine. “I think my water broke,” she whispered into the phone .
YOU THINK? WHAT? YOU’VE HAD A BABY BEFORE, NOT ME! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU
And that’s basically what I said on that beautiful afternoon on Long Island Sound when I came clean about how I felt. At first, it looked like it was going to turn into a very turbulent day for a treasured friendship. I wasn’t sure she would ever speak to me again.
I told Diane, “I don’t really think that you are sitting around eating all day, but I do think you need to break your cycle of depending on fattening foods and start believing in yourself again. You’re not really hiding anything with all those black pantsuits. Everyone knows you have a weight issue.”
Telling Diane the truth about her weight, and using that toxic word obese to describe her, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I certainly didn’t do it to be a bitch, even if some people might have thought so. I did it because I want her in my life, and I was worried about her health. I also thought it was only fair for Diane to hear it from a friend. It’s what other people were thinking when she was on TV or when she got up on stage to give a speech.
If you are wondering, Why tell her the truth? , maybe that isn’t the right question. Considering how long it took me to raise the topic of weight, and what it was doing to her personally and professionally, it might be more helpful to ask, Why didn’t you say this ten years ago, when her weight was just becoming a problem? Why did you avoid it?
I wish now that I had talked to Diane much sooner. It would have been a lot easier for both of us.
When Diane took me up on the challenge to lose seventy-five pounds and we decided to write this book together, at firstshe was reluctant to tell her own story. But eventually we both decided that baring our souls was the way to set an example for others. No one is better off with silence. As Diane put it, “If we can start a dialogue between the two of us, maybe we can instigate a wider discussion. A national discussion. So I’m all in.”
Here is more about how Diane has experienced the struggle against food and overweight, in her own words.
Although Mika and I got to know each other a little while working as news anchors and reporters at rival stations in Connecticut, we really bonded when she was in labor with Carlie. That was one of the most profound experiences of my life. I don’t have kids, and my sisters live far away, so it was truly a once-in-a lifetime event; something I have never shared with anyone else .
No wonder Mika has remained special to me all these years later. But I have to be honest. She’s a little nuts. When she wanted to know if I would step in for her husband, Jim, if she went into labor while he was out of town, did she call me and ask for my help? Did she drop by the house? No, she ran into my husband, Tom, at a coffee bar one Sunday morning and asked him to run it by me .
She was still a couple of weeks away from her due date when I said yes. What I was really figuring was , What are the chances the baby will come while Jim is out of town? Yeah, right. I didn’t give the possibility of coaching her through labor much thought after that. The only thing I did think about was how Mika looked during her pregnancy, and that was sure frustrating to me. Even at nine months’ pregnant, she was thinner than I was. In those days, I was always thinking , What the hell can I wear that won’t make me look so fat?
A few days after I agreed to be her backup labor coach, Mika dropped a couple of books in my mailbox, including What to Expect When You’re Expecting. The books were still in the mailbox when she called our house Friday night. Jim was on a plane to New Orleans, and Tom and I had just polished off a pizza and a bottle of wine. “I think my water broke,” she whispered into the phone .
YOU THINK? WHAT? YOU’VE HAD A BABY BEFORE, NOT ME! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU
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