And when she had her “aha” moment.
After some speculation about her recent slimmed-down appearance, and years of scrutiny about her body, Oprah Winfrey just revealed one of the secrets to her weight loss. In a new interview with PEOPLE, the media mogul revealed that she uses weight loss medication as a “maintenance tool.”
Throughout her decades-spanning career, she has had to navigate her fluctuating figure in the public eye and now she’s grateful for the consistency this combination of medication, diet, and exercise has afforded her.
“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,” she told the magazine in an interview published on Wednesday. She’s referring to the stigma that’s been attached to weight loss drugs like Ozempic amid the debate as to whether they’re safe, healthy, and sending the right message. “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.”
But which drug is Oprah taking exactly and what else do we know about her routine to stay in shape? Oprah opens up to the magazine about her approach to weight loss and turning 70.
Is Oprah on Ozempic?
Several celebrities, including Sharon Osbourne and Amy Schumer, have admitted using the type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic to help them lose weight. As Oprah has stepped out and slimmed down over the past few months, some fans speculated that she was also on the drug. But that detail remains a mystery; in her PEOPLE interview, she stopped short of disclosing which weight loss medication she was on.
She did reveal that she’s using the drug as part of a comprehensive routine that includes regular exercise, like hiking which she took up after undergoing double knee surgery in 2021. She explained to PEOPLE that she’s also made other lifestyle tweaks, such as drinking a gallon of water a day, eating all meals before 4 p.m., and using the WeightWatchers points system, which tracks calories, sugar, protein, and nutrients throughout the day.
It’s worth noting that Oprah is a long-time partner and board member of WeightWatchers, which has recently expanded into the prescription drug weight loss market. In March, the brand acquired the telehealth company Sequence, which, among other services, offers monthly subscribers access to doctors who can then prescribe weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy.
What has Oprah said about taking weight loss medication?
Up until now, Oprah admittedly has felt conflicted about the use of diet pills.
She told PEOPLE that she experienced a turning point while talking on a panel called “The State of Weight,” which was aimed at destigmatizing the conversations surrounding obesity. At the time, she explained that when drugs, like Ozempic, became the new fad, she felt like she had to lose the weight on her own because taking medications was “the easy way out.”
“I had the biggest ‘aha’ [moment] along with many people in that audience,” she told PEOPLE. “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.”
Once she reconciled the science, she rid herself of that shame. She consulted her doctor, who went on to prescribe a weight loss medication, and she now uses it as a tool to maintain her healthy weight. “I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,” she said.
For example, she took the medication before Thanksgiving this year. “I knew I was going to have two solid weeks of eating…and instead of gaining eight pounds like I did last year, I gained half a pound…It quiets the food noise.”
Though she’s seven pounds away from her goal weight of 160, she maintains that “it’s not about the number.” Instead, she’s focused on her recovery from her knee surgery, which she thinks of as a wake-up call. “It was a second shot for me to live a more vital and vibrant life.”
