Big N' Rich

Oprah Winfrey's January issue of "O" magazine contains the not-so-shocking revalation that the nougat-filled media queen weighs 200 pounds.

"I'm mad at myself, I'm embarrassed," she writes. "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?'"

Um...hot wings, cheesecake, double chocolate cookies, deluxe pizzas, french fries with ranch, bacon wrapped hot dogs...did you figure it out?

In the article, Winfrey (54) details her recent (sure) struggles with an out-of-balance thyroid and how the condition made her develop "a fear of working out." She says she's added 40 pounds to her frame since she weighed 160 pounds in 2006. And that ain't muscle. "I felt like a fat cow," she writes. "I wanted to disappear." Sorry, we don't have the technology yet.

Winfrey also writes that her goal is no longer to be thin (since that will never happen); instead, she wants to be strong, healthy and fit. She famously wheeled a wagon loaded with fat onto the set of her talk show in 1988 to represent a 67-pound weight loss with a liquid protein diet. Winfrey's weight has yo-yoed to the delight of the tabloid press ever since. She weighed as many as 237 pounds and by late 1990 acknowledged she had regained most of the weight, saying "I'll never diet again."

In 1994, she finished the Marine Corps Marathon and by 1996 hired personal trainer Bob Greene, saying her roller-coaster weight saga was over. But now, 20 years since the Calvin Klein jeans episode, Winfrey finds herself tipping the scales again, telling AP Television last week that she has yet to choose a gown for President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural ball next month. I suggest a schooner sail. Her weight and height put her body mass index at 31.8, which is obese, according to the CDC, and says people who are obese are "at higher risk for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol." And at least we know how much we'll have to lift off Dave Chappelle when he goes in for that "O" money.