When Chaz Bono returns to “The Doctors” tomorrow (9 a.m./Ch. 2) — three months after beginning a weight-loss journey on the daytime show — viewers will see a surprising transformation.
“I was really impressed with his progress in three months,” says show co-host Dr. Travis Stork. “He lost over 40 pounds and, more importantly, went from having high blood pressure and dangerously high cholesterol to normal cholesterol — and that’s with him going off medicines.
“The most positive development is that he’s developed a more positive relationship with food,” Stork says. “And that’s something anyone out there can relate to.”
When he visited “The Doctors” last November, Bono weighed 250 pounds, and attributed much of his weight problem to his family history (his mother is Cher) — where being thin was “prized above all else . . . I wasn’t an overweight child, but I was put on diets all of the time. So there was a lot of pressure to be underweight growing up,” he said at the time.
“There was a lot of pressure [for him] to be thin and I think you have to turn that around,” Stork says. “One of the big things he did was not eating as much, not engaging in mindless eating, which is something anyone can relate to.
“Chaz did things he enjoys — dancing, martial arts. The number one thing you’ll see is his smile — there’s happiness that has come from his improved health, and I felt that on stage.”
And, with “The Doctors” now in its fifth season, Stork says he and his co-hosts — Drs. Jim Sears, Lisa Masterson and Andrew Ordon —also feel more comfortable on stage.
“To be honest, I’m enjoying hosting the show now more than ever,” he says. “Because we’ve been doing it for five years now, there’s a comfort level with our viewers which we’ve been able to build over time.
“I know it may sound corny, but at this stage when people are watching a show for four-plus years, we genuinely have a relationship with the viewers. It’s nice to know that when I share something on the show and give my opinion, at this stage people know they can trust that opinion.”
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Last, but not least:
* “Killing Lincoln” snared a network-record 3.4 million viewers Sunday night on National Geographic (8-10 p.m.). The “original factual drama,” adapted from Bill O’Reilly’s best-seller, starred Billy Campbell (as Abraham Lincoln) and was narrated by Tom Hanks. It will be repeated this Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m. . . . Florence Henderson and Chef Govind Armstrong co-host a new series, “Who’s Cooking with Florence Henderson,” which premieres Feb. 27 on RLTV. Guests include Virginia Madsen, Robert Wagner and Leeza Gibbons (among many others).