This may sound funny but as much as the 'Today' show matured me it also was something of a cocoon. I'd been happy there. I never went into the boss's office and pounded my fist on the desk saying 'Give me more money! Give me a prime-time show!'

I went from 118 pounds to 135 pounds in a few months. But I still didn't know anything about food.

Clearly America's dysfunctional food culture must bear some of the blame for our excess pounds but it's likely our walking-averse lifestyles contribute as well.

When my work gets crazy I make sure to always have vitamins water and proper food with me. That has helped me to lose 33 pounds.

At one point I had to shove as much food in my body as possible to pack on calories. My trainer wanted me to do six meals a day and not go two hours without eating. If I would cheat on eating one day I could tell - I'd drop a few pounds.

When you gain 50 pounds during pregnancy like I did you fear that you'll never get back in shape.

I made my living being 20 or 30 pounds heavier than the average model. And that's where I got famous.

My parents were drawn to the idea that there was space and opportunity in Australia. For the meagre sum of £10 you could sail your entire family out to Australia so that's what my father chose to do.

For families across the UK who are income-poor but more than that whose lives are blighted by worklessness educational failure family breakdown problem debt and poor health as well as other problems giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.

I freak out if I go a little too long without being in the gym. For a long time it was all about getting the weight off because I was 240 pounds at my heaviest and now I'm around 175 so the majority of that weight loss was due to diet and exercise.

I weighed 193 pounds and had three chins. I couldn't get up before 9 a.m. and never saw patients before 10. I decided to go on a diet.

Going meat-free can make a huge difference. Studies show that vegetarians are on average 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters and that a vegetarian diet reduces our risk of heart disease by 40 percent and adds seven or more years to our lifespan.

I tried the Atkins diet in the Seventies when pregnant with my son as I didn't want to pile on the pounds. Now so long as I'm healthy I don't care what my scales say.

I put on fifteen pounds of muscle so that was a lot of eating chicken and a high protein low-carb diet. Also a lot of heavy lifting and a very different kind of training with an ex-navy SEAL guy who wanted to kill me every time I got with him. In a good way.

To be clear climate change is a true 800 pound gorilla in the room. The effects of global warming threaten global environmental upheaval over the coming century. But for South Florida and the Everglades it could be our death knell if urgent action is not taken.

I'm scared to death of being poor. It's like a fat girl who loses 500 pounds but is always fat inside. I grew up poor and will always feel poor inside. It's my pet paranoia.

And it's here and it's ready and we can really revolutionize the way we educate our children with tablet computers and I'm committed to doing whatever I can to speaking to whomever I can to send this signal - to pound this message home. Now is the time.