Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 1, 1993 TAG: 9311300141
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NICOLE BRODEUR ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And unlike most women, she doesn't gaze over the menu as if it were a tray of loose diamonds, ogling every facet, every cut, every possibility for sheer - albeit temporary - nirvana.
No, the queen of the fitness infomercial, the white-haired woman who jolts early morning channel surfers out of their chairs with her militaristic approach to eating, just tosses the menu aside and orders:
A bagel. Dry. Nothing on it.
Her waiter, Rico, nods and scribbles.
A fruit plate. With berries and melon.
Rico nods.
"And a bowl of oatmeal," Powter says. "You know: No milk. No butter. No nothing."
With that, Rico is dismissed. He returns promptly, though, carrying Powter's bagel.
For here at a Los Angeles' Le Montrose Hotel, where Powter has lived half the week (the other half at home in Dallas) for more than a year, they know that this woman must eat.
And, Powter must talk. A lot. With her red-rimmed mouth, with her hands and their crimson nails. With her arched black eyebrows and somehow, with her head: Buzzed. Cut to a bristle. Lots of peroxide.
On this day, Powter would pack the Anaheim Convention Center and deliver the message that has made her face, her voice and her thin, toned body a staple of cable-television viewing: "Stop the Insanity!"
Stop starving yourself, stop giving your money to the diet industry and start eating, breathing and moving.
This is the core of Powter's fitness program, her infomercial and her new book, all of which outline what she insists is not a diet, but a way of life.
"This is not a diet," she says emphatically, which is the way Powter says just about everything. "This is the way to get oxygen to your body, this is the way to increase lean muscle mass, this is the way to increase strength and decrease body fat. It is a very different mentality.
"This is not an opinion; this is the truth."
And it is a truth she is spreading like a seasoned evangelist, pacing across auditoriums in a leotard and sneakers, a slab of yellow fat set on the stage before her like a coffin ready to be buried.
This, she says, is what you are putting into your body. This is the enemy. Powter once was lost: a 260-pound single mother of two young boys (one came quickly after the other) who soothed her broken heart with food. When she went to a health club, they laughed at her. When she went to an aerobics class, they ignored her. She ended up sobbing in her car in the parking lot, then going home to eat.
And now, Powter is found: It started with a half-block walk outside her house, then one that lasted 30 minutes. Powter cut fat from her diet. The weight started to fall off. And the epiphany came in the mall, where Powter first realized that her thighs no longer were rubbing together. Eventually - and with the help of a wealthy boyfriend - Powter opened her own "wellness center" in Dallas and started doing public speaking and spreading the word: She had figured out how to apply the American Medical Association's fat formula to everyday eating.
In other words, you can eat as much as you want, as long as it doesn't have any fat in it: Instead of a cheeseburger, for example, you can eat 20 baked potatoes.
As word spread of her evangelistic approach, her message and her story, Powter hooked up with former public-relations executive Rusty Robertson.
Together, the two have turned Powter into a cottage industry, with appearances on "The Home Show"; a new, second infomercial; and her book, "Stop the Insanity!" for which Simon and Schuster paid her $625,000. It hit The New York Times best-seller list in its first week.
Next year, Powter will star in "The Susan Powter Show," a health-and-fitness program that will be syndicated by Multimedia and produced by Woody Fraser, who gave Richard Simmons his start.
"My mission, my goal, is to get this message to as many women as humanly possible," Powter said, swirling maple syrup on her oatmeal. "I am not a doctor, I am not a dietician or a nutritionist; I am a housewife who figured this out.
"And so the show is a very natural progression. It will be networking and supporting and sharing information. And that's very powerful and very wonderful."
She pauses, then smiles: "Beautifully said, Susan!"
If all that isn't enough, Powter has been talking to Clinton-pal and TV producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason about playing the hard-headed chief of staff to Delta Burke's congresswoman character in a still-in-development sitcom. Susan Powter was born in Sydney, Australia, and attended a Dominican convent school until she was 10, when she and her family moved to Richmond, Va., then New York state.
She married her first husband and promptly had two sons. Her weight started to rise. By the time she hit 260 pounds, her husband was gone.
She dieted, she starved, she gained the weight back. And when she finally figured out her "fat formula" and started to eat, breathe and move, she realized she needed to make more money to support her kids.
So Powter worked as a topless dancer and eventually met a married man who helped her get by. Eventually, she opened her own aerobics studio.
In the past few months, Powter has been hurt by her celebrity: Her brother told "Inside Edition" that she never weighed 260 pounds and that her program is a sham. Powter denied the charge.
But the experience, as evidenced on this day, has made Powter a reluctant interview who is more comfortable turning the conversation away from herself. She says little about her second husband, Lincoln, whom she met in a music store and married a few weeks later. He does her hair.
And of her two sons, Powter will say even less: "They are brilliant, adorable and better than anything else in my life.
"I hang out with my children a lot. We hang out in bed and eat popcorn and watch four movies in a row and get that snuggle-in-bed-all-day-stinky thing going on."
Her smile fades. The brows arch again and Powter leans in for the last surge. "But this is not my story . . . "
She insists that her first job is to help women. Thousands of them attend her seminars every few weeks, looking tired and overweight and ready for something - anything to break the lose-and-gain cycle.
"They are brilliant women who have been looking to an answer to feeling physically unwell," Powter said. "This is not about fat: This is about feeling unwell. Women have been set up to fail, and they know it.
"They just are looking for an answer and they have a right to the truth."
For just $79.90, plus postage and handling, Powter can give it to them in the form of two audiocassettes, two videocassettes, an eating guide, a "movement" video, a fat guide, body calipers and a motivational audio cassette.
But for now, what can she tell us? What is THE ANSWER?
"The answer is, you've got to get a healthy percentage of body fat, you've got to decrease your body fat, you've got to increase your strength and you've got to increase your cardio-endurance.
"This is not hype. This is the most valuable thing you can give to yourself: a foundation of wellness, the gift of health.
"Because it will make your life a HELL of a lot easier. I'm talking about waking up every day lean, strong and healthy. And there is nothing better.
"Nothing that makes life better. Nothing that makes life easier.
"Come oooooon!"
by CNB