WASHINGTON — It’s not easy being fat.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie yesterday admitted that his weight problem is “a really difficult thing to deal with” and that he’s not immune to ridicule about being hefty.
“There are some people who are just — you know, incredibly nasty and ugly and horrible,” he said in an unusually candid glimpse at his personal battle of the bulge.
“That’s just the way it goes. I mean, you know, people have that kind of prejudice about them. I can’t do anything about that,” Christie told ABC’s “Nightline.”
Christie usually jokes about his supersized proportions, but suddenly, he was using his famously blunt demeanor to publicly confront his 30-year struggle with his waistline.
Christie, a chief surrogate for Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney, opened up about his weight problem while making the rounds of TV news shows.
He said losing weight wasn’t about discipline or willpower, or similar to battling alcohol or drug addiction.
“You can go live every day without drinking. You can live every day without taking drugs. You can’t live every day without eating,” he said.
The governor took issue with Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large containers of soda, calling the idea “government run amok.’’
He said “people have to make choices.
“Sometimes, they’re going to make good choices, sometimes they’re going to make bad choices,” he told ABC, “but I don’t think we should have a daddy state.’’
Christie said he mostly encounters cruel and hurtful insults on his Twitter feed.
But other people have approached him who “genuinely are concerned about me and want me to be around for a long time, and really care about me,” he said.
Christie, 49, insisted he is making a valiant effort to diet. He works out with a trainer four days a week and is “trying to eat better,” he said.
“It’s really difficult,” he added. “I’m working at it. But obviously, I’m not there.
“But I also have hope that I can get there.”
Christie, who suffers from asthma, said he is otherwise healthy.
“My blood pressure’s fine, my cholesterol is fine,” he said. “I’m in good physical shape in terms of those indicators. But I have to lose weight, and I get it.”
Christie wouldn’t rule out running for VP.
“If Governor Romney picks up the phone and calls, you have to answer the call and listen at least,” he said on CNBC.
But asked if he expected that call, Christie responded, “I doubt it.”
He wasn’t afraid to break with Romney’s talking points. He contradicted the campaign’s position that the ObamaCare individual mandate is not a tax.
“I’ve thought all along that it was a tax,” Christie said on Fox News. “And I don’t think it’s exclusively a tax or a penalty — it’s both.”
The gregarious and outspoken governor said Romney — who has been criticized for having a stiff personality — should loosen up.
“I think he knows that,” he told ABC.
“I think as time progresses in this campaign, you’re going to see him open himself up more and more to the American people, and let them see who Mitt Romney really is
“And I think when they do, they’re going to like what they see.”