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Simmons still 'Sweatin' to the Oldies'
By Kat Carney
(CNN) -- While Americans have seen their share of weight loss gimmicks and gurus come and go, Richard Simmons says he's here to stay. The self-proclaimed court jester of fitness has been at if for more than 30 years now, but the man who got America "Sweatin' to the Oldies" (the name of his video series) says he once faced his own weight problems. "By the time I was 8 years old, I was 200 pounds," says Simmons. "Uniforms couldn't fit. My father would sew inserts under my arms and in my legs." From an early age, Simmons embarked on a long journey of fad diets. Year after year, his weight problem persisted. Desperate to be thin, his methods took a dangerous turn. "I learned how to throw up. Then I began taking 30 or 40 laxatives a day, and then I began starving for two and a half months, just drinking water, and almost died." At the age of 16, a stranger helped turn Simmons' life around. "Someone left a note on my car," he recalls. "It said, 'Dear Richard, you're very funny, but fat people die young. Please don't die.'"
At 268 pounds, Simmons says he made the decision to educate himself on the basics of nutrition and exercise. "I got some elementary school books [on] the six food groups. Now, we think about it as the pyramid. I started reading about walking and exercising. Slowly but surely, I went the right path." Eventually, that path led a trim and healthy Simmons to Beverly Hills, where he opened one of the first aerobic studios in 1974 and named it "Slimmons." Today the 54-year-old still teaches up to six classes a week. "I can't wait to teach a class," he says. "I can't wait to go in there and put the music on and make people sweat and laugh and have a good time." And it's not just classes. Simmons tirelessly reaches out to overweight people everywhere. "I call anywhere from 50 to 80 people a day. I do about 200 e-mails a day. ... I don't offer false hope for anybody. I tell them that it's going to take some time. They're going to have to love themselves. They're going to have to be patient." Simmons says he rarely suffers from a lack of motivation. "There may be a bad 10 seconds, but I clap my hands and snap my fingers and say, 'Richard you're on. You have a job to do and you better go out there and do it.'" For Richard Simmons, that job is getting each and every person moving and grooving.
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