Chris Christie to Barbara Walters: I'm Not Too Fat to Be President

If you're concerned that Chris Christie's health would prevent him from ably performing the job of president, he'd like you to look at his sleep schedule, not his waistline.

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The New Jersey governor, who has shot up to record approval levels in the weeks following Hurricane Sandy's devastating barrage on his state, told Barbara Walters that it would be "ridiculous" to think that he would be too heavy to be commander in chief.

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"I’ve done this job pretty well, and I think people watched me for the last number of weeks and Hurricane Sandy doing 18-hour days and getting right back up the next day and still being just as effective in the job,” he told Walters in an interview for her 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year show. "So I don’t really think that would be a problem.”

Christie, who has battled with his weight and acknowledged his struggles in the past, may face a different kind of obstacle in any quest for the White House in 2016: the ire of his own party.

Once thought to be a top contender to join 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney as vice presidential candidate, the aggressive Garden State governor began to praise President Obama for his leadership in the wake of Sandy's damage.

Having been a vicious critic of the president before the storm, some in the Republican party thought he was at least partially to blame for Romney's loss at the polls.

Christie defended himself, saying that the storm relief was above politics.

"The fact of the matter is, President Obama won the election pretty comfortably," he said in the interview. "I was doing my job as I saw fit to do it. And I told the truth, like I always do. The president did step up and help tremendously in New Jersey."