Barbara did the selecting, and that's probably the most brilliant thing, was she put together a group of women, different backgrounds, different experiences.

I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn in the homicide division and then as a senior assistant district attorney.

And I tried it and I felt, I guess I must have been pulled in by the red light of television and now I've been on TV since 1992.

I realized that in those nine seasons I started out at about 225 pounds and I felt, you know, full figured fabulous woman but in those seasons I gained 75 pounds up to over 300 pounds all in front of the nation.

I want people to make the same choice I made to get healthy.

In all honesty my cake was baking when I met Al - I had made up in my mind already to get physically healthy. He refreshingly was on his own journey so it was almost as if we walked together.

Yes and, you know, I can't use the nice words anymore because I used to chicken out by using them. I used to call myself plus size, used to call myself chubby. I used to call myself overweight.