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Star Jones Reynolds, shown in a 2004 photo, is touring the country to promote her new self-help book, "Shine: A Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love."
Courtesy of ABC

Accent

Star Jones Reynolds enjoying the view in mirror — candidly

By Allison Kaplan
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.01.2006
Star Jones Reynolds ate a grilled pork chop with rice and peas for lunch. There. Now you know.
It's 5 p.m., and Reynolds — the lawyer-turned-talk-show-host whose dramatic weight loss has been the subject of much media scrutiny — is at home in New York, preparing to make dinner for her husband, banker Al Reynolds. Flipping through the "Atkins for Life" cookbook, she settles on scallops, pan-seared in canola oil with spinach. But first, Reynolds will hit the gym for a core fusion class. "Which I absolutely love," she says.
She's half the woman she used to be, but don't call Reynolds a role model. "Clearly, anyone who gets to be 300 pounds is not your expert," she says. That's why she says she won't reveal how she lost the weight. "I feel really strongly that it's inappropriate for me to be a poster child for a weight-loss method."
She'd rather talk about what finally pushed her to make a change:
"Not being able to walk a block without an asthma attack. Not being able to stand in church because my knees hurt so much," she says. "I was lazy, lethargic and sedentary. I got comfortable being Star Jones and having a car to take me someplace. It lulls you into a false sense of what you can do. Instead of admitting I couldn't walk around the corner, I'd say to myself, 'I have a car to take me.' "
Reynolds, 43, couldn't be more candid about her body issues. "Don't say I was heavy, full-figured or plus-sized. I was morbidly obese."
And don't dare call the new and improved Reynolds thin. "Come on, girl, please," she chides. "I'm not thin."
Reynolds, now a size 10, is currently touring the country to promote her new self-help book, "Shine: A Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love." We'll leave the motivational speeches and religious revelations for her book stops. Here's what she has to say on everything else:
On bacon: "I love bacon. I love it more than anything on the planet. If they said I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be bacon. I eat it two or three times a week with breakfast. Turkey bacon. Canadian bacon. The old Star would eat six to eight slices. The new Star eats two."
On being thin — er, thinner: "The weirdest thing is sitting in an airplane seat and having room on either side."
On underwear: "From the time I was 16 until seven or eight months ago, every pair of underwear I ever owned, I bought at Lane Bryant. Now, I buy almost everything at Saks Fifth Avenue."
On her plus-size wardrobe: "All of it, 38 boxes from size 26 to 12, went to Dress for Success."
On why she's not hosting E!'s red-carpet award show arrivals this year: "I declined to be considered. I'm not even sure they'd have wanted me back. They put a different team together. Everyone knows my style is very much a fan of the business. I'm not mean-spirited or nasty. I'm not there to be in your face with little gags. I'm not good at that."
On her red-carpet replacement, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi: "I didn't really watch. I watched some of Joan (Rivers), and I turned to E! to see how pretty Debbie (Matenopoulis, the canned "View" co-host") looked. If I'm not working, I'm hanging with friends, having a slice of pizza and flipping channels like everybody else."
On her relationship with co-hosts on "The View": "Elizabeth (Hasselbeck) and I are very good friends. Joy (Behar) and I have taken vacations together. Meredith (Vieria) and I have girls days. Barbara (Walters), I see socially. We don't have to be connected at the hip. Clearly, it works. After nine years together, we have the best chemistry on TV."
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