Last week, Oprah attended the big premiere of The Color Purple, the latest (musical) adaptation. Her transformation was remarkable, and many people had conversations about Oprah’s weight loss and how she looks really great. There were other conversations too, about whether she’s on Ozempic or another weight-loss drug, and whether she should talk about it. Well, guess what? She’s talking about it. Oprah covers this week’s People Magazine, and she talked about the changes she’s made with her diet and fitness, and then she admits that she had an “aha moment” over the summer, when she did that panel discussion about weight loss, obesity and how weight isn’t a matter of pure “will power.” While Oprah sounded somewhat close-minded about weight-loss drugs then, she changed her mind and in true Oprah fashion, she’s talking about all of it pretty openly:

Conversations about Oprah’s weight: “It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself.” One hurtful moment came early in her career, when she landed on acerbic fashion critic Mr. Blackwell’s list. “I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, ‘Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy.’ I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”

No more: Weight fluctuations “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,” says Winfrey, whose dogged rehabilitation after knee surgery in 2021 kick-started what has been steady weight loss over the last two years. “After knee surgery, I started hiking and setting new distance goals each week. I could eventually hike three to five miles every day and a 10-mile straight-up hike on weekends. I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years.”

Her new regimen: “I eat my last meal at 4 o’clock, drink a gallon of water a day, and use the WeightWatchers principles of counting points. I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications, but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way….I was actually recommending it to people long before I was on it myself.”

The turning point: Itcame in July during a taped panel conversation with weight loss experts and clinicians, called The State of Weight and part of Oprah Daily’s Life You Want series. “I had the biggest aha along with many people in that audience,” she recalls of the discussion, which posted online in September. “I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control. Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”

How she uses the medication: Once she reconciled the science, Winfrey says she “released my own shame about it” and consulted her doctor, who went on to prescribe a weight-loss medication. “I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,” she says, opting not to name the specific drug she takes. “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.”

Weight-loss drugs are not the magic bullet: Winfrey is aware of the buzz around her body size, especially as the use of medications like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro for weight loss has surged in popularity. But she stresses it has not been a magic bullet or singular solution. “It’s everything,” she says of her all-encompassing health and fitness routine. “I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me.”

Thanksgiving eating: She took the medication before Thanksgiving “because I knew I was going to have two solid weeks of eating,” she says, and “instead of gaining eight pounds like I did last year, I gained half a pound . . . It quiets the food noise.”

Goal weight: Though she’s seven pounds away from her goal weight of 160 lbs., Winfrey says “it’s not about the number.” Instead, she’s content building on the progress she has made during the two years since her surgery. “It was a second shot for me to live a more vital and vibrant life.”

[From People]

I’m glad she’s talking about it and I’m glad she’s putting her decision in context, with how her mindset changed over time, how she understands that it’s not about willpower for her or millions of other people. The thing that depresses me though is that Oprah is almost 70 years old and so much of her brain-space is still occupied with thoughts about her weight. While she puts that in context too, and talks about her health and wanting to feel strong and resilient, it still feels like she should just give up the whole concept of a “goal weight.” She’s set goal weights for herself before, and she’s reached that goal weight, only to back slide and gain it back and the whole miserable cycle started up again. Like, you’re 70 years old. Just live a happy, rich and healthy life and stop weighing yourself. Release yourself from the prison of having a “goal weight.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of People Magazine.