It is official, Oprah Winfrey is fat! Yep, as she has hit “the dreaded 2-0-0,” as she writes in the January 2009 issue of O. Posed alongside a cutout of herself in leaner times, Winfrey admits in a candid essay that, after getting down to 160 lbs. in 2004, she has gained back 40 lbs. in the last four years. “I’m mad at myself. I’m embarrassed,” she writes. “I didn’t just fall off the wagon. I let the wagon fall on me.”

The roots of Oprah Winfrey’s 200 lbs weight problem Winfrey’s yo-yo battle with weight gain spans most of her career, from her triumphant marathon run in 1994 to earlier this year, when she announced she had been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder that left her fatigued and feeling heavy.

That condition – plus a busy 2008 that included fallout from a sexual misconduct scandal at her school for girls in South Africa and her pivotal involvement in Barack Obama’s campaign – caused Winfrey, 54, to miss workouts and slide into poor eating habits.

“I took myself off my own priority list,” she writes in O. Now her challenge is to get healthy again – this time, she hopes, for good. “I can’t believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do,” she writes, “I’m still talking about my weight.”

I cannot believe it either. I mean, come on, Oprah, how stupid do you think we are? How hard could it be to eat healthy when you have unlimited resources, the best food and a personal chef? You do not even need to exercise. All you need to do not to gain weight is to eat what your chef gives you. How hard could it be? [via]