People Exclusive

Sex and the City Helped Tyra Banks Lose Weight

By Michael Y. Park

09/10/2009 at 03:50 PM EDT

Is there anything the ladies of Sex and the City can't do? Not only do they live out cosmopolitan fantasies in boardroom-sized shoes closets – they've also helped Tyra Banks lose weight.

In an episode of The Tyra Show to air Friday, Banks describes how a new treadmill and watching the show about Carrie Bradshaw's romantic travails helped her get her supermodel body back.

PHOTOS: Tyra Fires Back at Weight Critics

"I got rid of one of my couches in my living room and I watched Sex and The City episodes on the treadmill or the elliptical," she says. "So Sex and the City lasts 30 minutes – that's how long I'm on the elliptical."

But Banks, who is joined by a nutritionist, says the media blew things out of proportion when people noticed she was shedding pounds after getting lambasted for putting on weight.

"The media started taking notice and showing pictures of before and after of me losing weight, and I felt kind of exposed because I wasn't trying to proclaim to the world, 'I got fit and I got healthy and I got in shape,' because I felt kind of conflicted especially after the 'Kiss my fat ass' thing," she says. "It's still fat by the way."