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CNN Saturday Morning News
Karen Brown Discusses How She Lost 70 Pounds
Aired May 04, 2002 - 08:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, I'll tell you what. This is Elizabeth Cohen. But quickly, let's go to -- we want to give you a quick preview of who we're going to see in just a moment. There's Karen live. Look at Karen there. Can we get that shot? Karen, you look great. We're going to talk to you in just a minute.
But first, fantastic. Congratulations.
KAREN BROWN, LOST 70 POUNDS: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: But Elizabeth, let's talk about the seven tips, because everybody's got their notebook ready.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's like what are we doing? What do we do?
O'BRIEN: OK, what do we do? How are we going to look like Karen? All right...
COHEN: These are tips from folks like Karen who belong to this group of successful, people who have successfully weight lost, lost weight and kept it off, which is really the key. All of us are good at losing weight. It's the keeping it off part.
So let's look -- I'm not going to give you all seven, because you have to watch the show at 8:00 tonight. But you can get four. Is that a good deal? I'll give you four.
All righty. The first one is expect failure but keep trying. The second one is don't deny yourself those goodies or you will drive yourself bananas, no pun intended. Weight yourself often. These folks weighed themselves often. And four, exercise an hour a day. It could be walking, it could be running, it could be aerobics, a whole variety of things. I think some of those are self-explanatory. Some of them I'm going to give a little bit more explanation.
Expect failure but keep trying. People like Karen and Robert Romaniello, who you saw in the piece, they failed many, many, many times before they succeeded. So if you've tried and you've tried don't give up. You still, in the future, could succeed.
And the second one, don't deny yourself, what that means is that if you love chocolate chip cookies, don't keep them out of your life forever or you'll just go crazy. But you know what? Have one every afternoon, not 35.
O'BRIEN: Ah, but that is the tricky thing.
COHEN: That is the tricky thing, right.
O'BRIEN: That is the tricky thing, you know, because you know a lot of times we'll say, you know, if I drink two beers tonight, if I could just drink one, you know, it's, once you start. So it's better for me to just say forget it. You know, I mean I guess that's -- everybody has to make their own personal decision.
COHEN: Everybody's different, of course. Of course. And some people will say well, gosh, I don't want to have that Ben & Jerry's in my house.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
COHEN: So maybe you don't have it in the house...
O'BRIEN: It's evil.
COHEN: ... go out and get a bowl because then you can't have a second.
O'BRIEN: So make it a production to go get it or something.
COHEN: Yes, something like that. Something like that.
O'BRIEN: Make it a little harder.
COHEN: But Karen really is the best person to ask how you just say no.
O'BRIEN: All right, Karen, you know, I'm sorry, I don't even if it's politically correct to say this anymore, but you look marvelous.
BROWN: Oh, thank you.
O'BRIEN: Is that OK to say?
COHEN: That's OK. Yes.
O'BRIEN: OK, thank you.
BROWN: That's OK.
O'BRIEN: Karen? OK. Karen, what else would you like to pass along to folks out there who are frustrated by this effort to get from where you were to where you are now?
BROWN: I understand that frustration completely. Been there. I've done that. It's really hard to stay motivated. There's key -- just keep going and just focus on your goals and set small achievements so you're not setting yourself up for failure. There's just so many different things that you can do every day.
O'BRIEN: How do you feel, though? I mean do you feel as good as you look?
BROWN: I feel the best I ever have right now.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
BROWN: I'm the fittest I've ever been right now.
O'BRIEN: You know, it seems to me, and I want to bring Elizabeth in on this, that the whole diet industry conspires to make people fail. And there's probably, you know, it kind of reminds me of Detroit with planned obsolescence, cars that rusted on purpose. It's almost like they create these diet programs for you to fail so you'll go out and get another diet program.
COHEN: Right. Pantyhose that run.
O'BRIEN: Yes, exactly.
COHEN: Yes, yes. There you go. Yes.
O'BRIEN: So what's the deal?
COHEN: So what's the deal?
O'BRIEN: Are they doing it on purpose?
COHEN: I don't know if they're doing it on purpose, because if they really succeeded they really would make even more money. But, Karen, first of all, Karen, hello.
BROWN: Hi.
COHEN: I saw you several months ago in Denver. I had such a wonderful time at your house.
BROWN: I did, too. That was really fun, Elizabeth.
COHEN: Thank you. It was so much fun. We had a great girl bond there.
BROWN: Girls locker room.
COHEN: Let's talk about some of the things that didn't work. Let's talk about all the things that you tried but didn't work.
BROWN: I tried all of the, you know, everything that ended in slim, you know, diet plans. I tried all the different diets from low, you know, low carbs, high protein. I tried eating soup for a week with a spoon, you know, with a fork. I tried...
O'BRIEN: Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You what? You ate soup with a fork?
BROWN: Uh-huh.
O'BRIEN: And what was the theory on that? Did you come up with that one or had you read about this?
BROWN: Oh, it was just more to satisfy the taste buds and just get the taste and not so much of the quantity. I've tried any liquid diet. I tried all the slimming products that there was and, you know, it would be successful for a short period of time, but then, you know, after five, six, seven days I would go off of it and I might have lost a pound or two and went all right, cool. But after that it just came right back on and then some. And, you know, several times over and over.
O'BRIEN: It seems to me, though, and we're kind of -- time is expiring here, but I've got to, we've got to get this point out, that Americans in particular are constantly looking to just buy their way out of a problem.
BROWN: Yes.
COHEN: It's not going to work.
O'BRIEN: A silver bullet.
BROWN: Right.
COHEN: It's not going to work.
O'BRIEN: Go to the shelf and buy whatever it is and it's going to make me skinnier.
BROWN: Right.
O'BRIEN: That just does not work, does it?
COHEN: Forget it. Yes, not going to happen.
BROWN: Yes. It's not going to happen. There's no such thing as a magic pill, unfortunately. I wish I could, you know, pill, motivation for people to stay on the track, to stay as focused, to stay, you know, being successful.
O'BRIEN: All right, Scott, our director, suggests the all beer diet. But that's something -- hey, Scott, why don't you publish a book and then you won't have to get up early on Saturday mornings to do this with us?
All right, well, listen, Karen Brown, thank you very much. Congratulations to you and I have no doubt you're going to keep the weight off and look like that for the remainder of your days.
BROWN: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen, this is just a little taste of what's to come, if you'll excuse the expression given the subject matter here.
COHEN: I will. O'BRIEN: Dieters will not want to miss "Fat Chance." Catchy title, huh? CNN Presents special with Elizabeth Cohen as the reporter. It airs tonight 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific right here on CNN. I think it airs again on Sunday night, but I don't know what time. Do you know what time it is on Sunday night?
COHEN: I believe 7:00 p.m.
O'BRIEN: 7:00 p.m. on Sunday night. "Fat Chance" is the program. Karen's part of it. Elizabeth did all the hard work. We appreciate your dropping by.
COHEN: My pleasure.
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