Richard Simmons
I began reading cook books when I was six, cause my father had hundreds of cook books in the kitchen. I was obsessed with cooking and tasting different recipes. I got lost in being a compulsive eater. It brought me much happiness. Sadness too, sure. But I have to say, and compulsive eaters will agree with me, for that few seconds that you're eating, food tastes just great.Collection: Father
I am kinder to my body. I don't try to prove anything to myself or others. I keep thinking about the need to go slower, gentler and maintain a sense of humor about it all.Collection: Thinking
One day I may be meeting you and hearing how you've changed your life by saying, "Farewell to Fat".Collection: Funny
If you don't love your mother you go straight to hell.Collection: Mother
My father offered me a dollar for every pound I would lose as a kid. It didn't work. And it doesn't really work in the long run.Collection: Running
I plan for the future, but the only day I really worry about is the day I'm living right now.Collection: Living Right
Everything I did with my life I did so that I could give my parents everything they didn't have because of me.Collection: Giving
Miley Cyrus, like all of us, needs to be loved. We all come from complicated parents I understand her, and I love her, and I think things will be different with her. But you know, in the music business, sometimes you have to shock a little.Collection: Thinking
You know, if your parents didn't have you, they'd be living in a nicer home, driving a Mercedes-Benz, with money in the bank and a boat. But noooooo. They had to have you! You've got to give back!Collection: Home
I took desperate measures to lose weight and did terrible things to myself. I went from diet pills to thirty laxatives a day to throwing up.Collection: Desperate Measures
I was born with a crippled leg. I wore a corrective shoes since I was three years old and I still wear them.Collection: Years
This is my theater. This is where I can sing and act out a play and do sit-ups at the same timeCollection: Play
I might as well be gay. And not just because I love rhinestones and Barbara Streisand. But because Im a sensitive person who is supportive of gay people the same way Im sensitive to grossly obese people and ugly people.Collection: Gay
If you want to get the body you've always dreamed of, you have to earn it. You can't buy it, you can't rent it. You have to earn it. My formula has always been love yourself, move your body, watch your portions. And it sounds so easy, but it is not.Collection: Moving
I have a one of a kind collection of dolls. My house is like a museum.Collection: Museums
If people confront me with certain questions, if they are not right, I will not answer them.Collection: People
Truthfully, everyone knows how to eat right. They know the difference between oatmeal and a jelly cream doughnut. They know how to walk. Everyone has this in their brain. When I started, we didn't have all this knowledge. Forty years ago, I lost my weight, but only by watching what I was eating.Collection: Years
I'm a very insecure and emotional person still looking to be loved by everyone else.Collection: Insecure
Thats what we need going into the millennium. We need some positive, happy stuff.Collection: Needs
Its an eerie thing. My childhood is being washed away.Collection: Eerie
For my workout, I'm up at 4am. I say my prayers, count my blessings, and I work out right away. I just get it done. One day I'll tone - chest, back and shoulders - and the next day it's biceps and triceps. I also do 45 minutes of cardio every day. I do that before I even leave the house.Collection: Workout
My way is the sensitive, emotional way, because that's who I am. A day doesn't go by where I don't sit and cry, listening to the stories. I try to be the clown and court jester and make people laugh.Collection: Emotional
When I was younger, I ate nothing but fried food. Everything was fried, from oysters to chicken to potatoes to vegetables. When you die in New Orleans, they deep fry you before they put you in the coffin. When we baptize children in New Orleans, we baptize them with a bordelaise sauce; we don't use water.Collection: Children
Most workouts are way too aggressive. Thousands of lunges wear out the body. It's not healthy for the one with the bad back, bad knees, diabetes. I'm never going to do that.Collection: Workout
Stop trying to find something in food that will make you feel better.Collection: Feel Better
I never sold any of those "lose 10 pounds every week" scams. I've not changed my tune in all these years. I've seen everything pass by me, and I've been offered millions of dollars to put my name on products that were just lies. And I never did it.Collection: Lying
I've been offered big money to promote machines. And high-protein diets, when that was really popular. There was always some new powder or diet plan that somebody wanted to put my name on.Collection: Names
I get energy from meditation practice and from eating healthy fresh food, only one cup of espresso in the morning, and not drinking too much.Collection: Morning
After I talk to so many people who are so unhappy about their weight and so depressed that they don't see any rainbows in their life, after I talk to about 30 of those, then I try to walk away and pet my dog, just do something that makes me happy.Collection: Dog
For 40 years, my formula has been to love yourself, move your body and to watch portion size. But the No. 1 thing is to love and value yourself, no matter what you've been through.Collection: Moving
I try to be the clown and court jester and make people laugh. At the same time, you have people in the hospital who have had gastric bypass or lap-band surgery and they still have to work out. If you don't work out and eat healthy, you'll look like a melted candle.Collection: People
I'm 64, but I act like I'm still 12. I go to schools. At colleges, they come out in droves, they almost scare me. I think it's just to see if I'm still alive. After I work them out - and it's not easy - I sit them down and we have a serious talk. Are they eating? Working on their body? I can say things parents won't say. No matter where I go, I talk to each one individually after I teach. They tell me things like, 'I'm starving, guys like girls thinner.' I give them concrete advice about self-image and self-worth.Collection: Girl
Stop trying to find something in food that will make you feel better. I used to have eating disorders; I'd binge and purge all the time: fried oysters, po' boys, muffulettas, beignets, coffee and doughnuts. I tried to medicate myself with food when people made fun of me or hit me with a bat in school. I'd always turn to food. Knowing what I now know, I'd turn to me.Collection: Fun
No one can make fun of overweight people in front of me!Collection: Fun
There is no magic milkshake or workout machine. I think the real machine is your body. I do love treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, free weights.Collection: Workout
I have never lied to the people. I have always told them to love themselves, to move their body, and to watch their portions. I never jumped on any other bandwagons for stupid diets or shots or pills or anything. I'm very worried about our young people. And we need to take care of them, or they're not going to live as long as their parents. And this is really something very important to me.Collection: Stupid
It's my life dream to be able to go and continue going to schools and teaching them about stretching and aerobics, cardio and strength training, because I want them to have a better life than I did. I don't want them to grow up to be me. I want them to be healthy. I want them not to go through eating disorders [like me].Collection: Dream
It's terrible, the way obese children and adults are treated in this country [USA]. And I'm not leaving this Earth until that is changed.Collection: Country
Back in the 70s and 80s, women felt the discrimination of being overweight. And now 35% of the letters I receive are from men.Collection: Men
I think at the age of 50, everyone should write their own autobiography.Collection: Writing
My nickname is Dickie Jukebox.Collection: Jukebox
I do consider myself a clown and a court jester, and I do love to make people laugh, whether they're laughing with me or at me.Collection: People
When I talk to kids who are overweight, I see my face on their bodies.Collection: Kids
When you gain weight, for every pound that you gain, it adds four pounds of stress on your knees. So if you gain five pounds, you've got 20 pounds of stress on your knees. So that's why I'm extremely careful with my portions and my workout, because I can't be overweight.Collection: Workout
Every day after school, for three hours a day, I would sell those pralines on the street corner. I was just eight years old. I'd bring the money home to my parents and say, "This is just the beginning."Collection: Home
What if you can't do what you once did, like run and jump up and down? You can walk, which is also good for your mind and mental attitude. You can do simpler exercises, like getting up and down from a chair without using your hands. You can stay fairly flexible. The most important thing is to not become sedentary.Collection: Running
I've never swayed from who I am. People have seen me on television, and they know what I'm like and they know what I do and they respect me for what I do. They know that I'm huggy and kissy.Collection: Who I Am