Wish I was fat like that!

Tyra Banks, who has gained weight since her days strutting the catwalk, says she was upset when unflattering photos showing her in a one-piece bathing suit were mocked on the Internet.

"It was such a strange meanness and rejoicing that people had when thinking that was what my body looked like. It was really hurtful to me," the 33-year-old talk-show host says in an interview in the Feb. 5 issue of People magazine.

The photos show Banks on a beach during a recent trip to Sydney, Australia. They had popped up earlier this month on a celebrity gossip Web site with the not-so-nice headline: "Tyra Banks is Fat."

Banks, who hosts the syndicated The Tyra Banks Show and the CW network's America's Next Top Model, tells the magazine she weighs 161 pounds and has fluctuated from 148 pounds to 162 pounds, depending on how well she's taking care of herself, since retiring from modeling in 2005.

"I don't want to sit in front of you and be soap-boxy and fake and say, 'I love myself, I'm beautiful, it's great,'" says Banks, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall. "I still feel hot, but every day is different. It's when I put on the jeans that used to fit a year ago and don't fit now and give me the muffin top, that's when I say, 'Damn!'"

In other words, yes, she has put on weight, though not nearly as much as recent tabloid stories have suggested.

Banks says "I'm not the healthiest eater" and isn't required to "live up to that model standard anymore."

"I've made millions of dollars with the body I have, so where's the pain in that?" she says. "If I was in pain, I would have dieted. The pain is not there — the pain is someone printing a picture of me and saying those (horrible) things."

I copied that from a website today after seeing this story on television. It's such a shame that someone that is so beautiful and known for her body is being scorned now because she no longer fits the uberthin supermodel standard. She has a few extra curves but carries it extremely well. Hell I wish I carried my weight as well as this girl! Granted she is about six inches taller than I am but I'm guessing my 149lbs (yes, it's up a couple from before) are proportionate to her 161 with the height difference. To me she still looks amazing and I think it's stupid that so much emphasis is being placed on her current weight.

Today's society is so worried about what the scale says that they lose perspective on what kind of message it sends to girls and young women. I was very fortunate to be a skinny little shit for most of my life. I had my first child and gained only about 10 to 12 pounds with that pregnancy. After he was born you would have never guessed I had given birth. It wasn't until about four years ago that I noticed I had went up from about 110 to about 125 and at the time that was a big jump for me. My gracious I had to move up to a size 8, for shame. **rolling my eyes** After I got pregnant with A2 I more than made up for the weight I didn't gain with A1. I ballooned up to about 165 and convinced myself that it would all go away after he was born. He was going to be a big baby. Yeah right! He was smaller than the first one and after he was born I still looked like I was carrying twins!

Hence you keep hearing about my struggle right now to lose weight. I don't want to get back down to 110 or even 120. In fact I went through my closet and gave away all my size 4 and most of my size 6 pants. My goal is to get back into a comfortable 8 and down to about 135. I would love to see 130 but don't want to set myself up for disappointment. I'm doing extremely well as far as working out on a regular basis goes. I'm not eating so well this week. It's the chocolate and cheese week and it's a real struggle but I'm trying, not succeeding very well, but trying. I see the number on the scale rise back up a couple of pounds but I'm not discouraged. I like to think it's muscle that I'm building. I can already see a difference and I went out with a friend yesterday who noticed as well. Major confidence booster!

So anyway, it's just crappy that the top headline on one of those stupid newsmagazine programs today was the fact that Tyra Banks would no longer blow away in a windstorm but might actually sit down and chow on a cheeseburger. I say good for you Tyra for saying that you still feel hot. I'm working on being able to say that myself...right now I'm just a little warm!

Current specs:
149lbs
about three weeks away from comfortably wearing my favorite jeans