Kirstie Alley has once again lost her battle of the bulge. The former Jenny Craig spokeswoman has lost her contract with them after weighing in at an estimated 200 – 220 pounds. Kirstie claimed that she was 145 pounds at her slimmest on Jenny Craig. Unfortunately it seems she wasn’t able to maintain that weight loss. According to the National Enquirer, Alley is desperate to lose weight, and has turned to an alternative medicine clinic to help her achieve her goals.

Now the 57-year-old “Cheers” star has turned to an alternative medical procedure to curb her cravings and lose weight – a regimen featuring acupuncture and herbal medicines. She is going to the Chinese Healing Institute, which uses alternative medicine to treat a variety of health problems, including eating disorders.

“Kirstie has been going to the Institute a couple of times a week. She’s undergoing acupuncture to curb her cravings for unhealthy food, and receiving potent herbal medicines to suppress her appetite,” said her pal.

[From the National Enquirer, Feb. 25th 2008 print edition]

Though Kirstie claimed on Oprah that she was 219 pounds at her heaviest, friends say she’s been lying about that all along. The Enquirer claims that at her heaviest, Alley was closer to 300 pounds. At her lightest, she was at 175. That’s still a HUGE amount of weight to lose, and it’s not surprising that an actress – or anyone for that matter – wouldn’t want to admit to being close to 300 pounds. I never really bought that she was 145 though. According to the Enquirer, Kirstie is both personally and professional embarrassed by the loss of her Jenny Craig contract. They say that Valerie Bertinelli was brought in during Kirstie’s third year to act as competition for the actress, and that Alley could have been signed to a fourth year if she hadn’t gained so much weight. Queen Latifah is now the new face of Jenny Craig.

My big question is this: if Scientology rids the world of all evils, addictions, and a bunch of other crap, shouldn’t the Scientologists have a solution for all this? Alley claims they cured her drug habit over the course of one class at Narconon. Where’s Foodonon? Surely if they believe they’re the only ones who can really help, they’ve got a solution to this, right? Something tells me even if they came up with one, we wouldn’t be hearing about it. There’s several chubby Scientologists – John Travolta would be another one – how embarrassing would it be for them when whatever alien-based program they came up with inevitably didn’t work? I’m just curious to know if Kirstie Alley, who’s donated millions of dollars to the church, asks herself, “They fixed everything else that’s wrong with my life, why can’t they fix this?” Kirstie is supposedly worried about her health and how it’s affecting her two kids. For that sake, I hope she finds a successful program she can live with.