Oprah Winfrey Confirms Using Weight Loss Drug Despite Saying It's The 'Easy Way Out'
Oprah Winfrey has been using a weight loss drug to maintain her healthy weight and avoid the yo-yo effect.
Winfrey is currently in her best shape after years of struggling with weight loss. In a recent interview with People, she spoke about the challenges of weight loss and how she handled the shame and blamed herself for it. She then admitted that she keeps her figure with the help of a weight loss medication without disclosing its name.
"[I] released my own shame about it," Winfrey said, adding that she consulted her doctor, who prescribed her a weight loss medication. "I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing."
"The fact that there's a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for. I'm absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself."
In the same interview, Winfrey reflected on the challenges in her decades of weight loss journey and how it subjected her to years of discrimination.
"It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years," Winfrey recounted. "I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself."
She remembered a "hurtful moment" when she landed on acerbic fashion critic Mr. Blackwell's list after being featured on a magazine cover that described her as "Dumpy, Frumpy, Downright Lumpy." Winfrey said she wasn't angry but was hurt. She swallowed the shame and accepted that it was her fault.
Weight fluctuations had been an issue for her.
"[It] occupied five decades of space in my brain, yo-yoing and feeling like why can't I just conquer this thing, believing willpower was my failing," she said.
Winfrey decided to change her mind about weight loss medication when she spoke with weight loss experts and clinicians in a conversation called "The State of Weight" as part of the Oprah Daily's "Life You Want" series in July, which was posted online in September. Her conversation with them made her realize that she was wrong to blame herself because "obesity is a disease. It's not about willpower -- it's about the brain."
During the conversation, Winfrey mentioned considering using weight loss medication like Ozempic. However, she decided against it, thinking it was the "easy way out."
Winfrey recently flaunted her sexy figure at the premiere of "The Color Purple" at the Academy Museum of Motion Picture. She graced the purple carpet with her noticeable curves while rocking a gorgeous violet gown.
When asked how she kept her figure, the Hollywood mogul said, "I was on that treadmill today." Winfrey also said that she intends to keep her figure.
