Oprah Winfrey Reveals How She Loses Weight, Diet & Eating Habits 2024

You may have heard her referred to as Lady O or the talk show host who gave away 276 brand-new Pontiac G-6 sedans to her guests during a season premiere episode. Don’t forget about the time she gifted a Porsche to David Caruso, a man who had lost over 300 pounds. 

However you’ve come across her existence, Oprah Winfrey has remained one of the most influential people of all time, especially regarding weight loss.

Some people can lose weight fast; for others, it can take a lot of hard work and dedication. People use different techniques while going through a lot of trial and error to find what works for them. 

Oprah publicly shares her struggles with maintaining weight by encouraging others to live their best lives. 

This article will look at Oprah Winfrey’s weight loss journey and what she’s doing to stay healthy. 

Oprah Winfrey Shares About Her Weight Loss Journey

Oprah’s love for vibrant, delicious food has been evident throughout her career and social networking. She has videos of her cooking food with family and hosting parties that boast the best chefs in the world. 

She’s opened up about her roller-coaster weight gain and loss throughout the years in a transparent way that pulls people in to listen and learn open-mindedly.

In 1988, The Oprah Show host went on a liquid-only Optifast diet resulting in a 67-pound weight loss. In 4 months, she went from 212 pounds to 145 pounds. 

She shared this triumphant success by showing up in front of her audience in her size ten blue jeans while pulling a red wagon with an enormous chunk of fat weighing what she had lost to demonstrate her win. 

Oprah Opens Up About Her Weight Loss Struggles

Within weeks of her most significant weight loss, she had gained 10 pounds, and the struggle was back on. She has continued to share updates about her weight journey throughout the years. 

In 1992, Bob Greene became her personal trainer, taking her from her highest-ever weight of 237 pounds to a healthier state where she could even run a marathon.

In 2004 she turned 50 years young, and in 2005 felt confident enough at 160 pounds to show her toned tummy on the cover of her magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine. 

Within a few years, the scale started pushing towards 200 pounds again, and she was working with editors to hide her body from the cover of her own magazine. 

Then she began feeling symptoms of poor health and found out she had an underactive thyroid^[1].

At that time, she was thinking, “’Well, now it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a thyroid problem. If I don’t embrace hunger, everything I eat is going to make me fat anyway, and my metabolism isn’t working, so I might as well just eat whatever I want. Okay. Fat wins,” she said. “I felt completely defeated.”

She shared in 2008 how mad and embarrassed she was when getting on the stage with artists like Cher and Tina Turner, wishing she could hide after gaining weight again. 

In 2015, Lady O joined Weight Watchers (now known as WW) and sent their stocks through the roof with her influential powers. 

In 2016^[2] she celebrated a nearly 45-pound weight loss with the WW program and said, “Today I’m more conscious about what I eat, balancing indulgent things with healthier options. I leave the table feeling satisfied—and to me, that’s far more important than any number on the scale.”

And then, at the beginning of 2022, she announced she had lost 42 pounds using Weight Watchers and that she fully believes this program is powerful.

Despite her many struggles, during an interview with Dr. Oz, Oprah said she never quit trying to lose weight because she believed she would live to see the day when she would balance it.

How Did Oprah Lose Weight?

Oprah is not only an investor but a board member of Weight Watchers. This weight loss system works by counting “points” for food, and you can have a certain amount of points in a day. 

She says she’s not on a “diet,” and she eats and drinks consciously as a lifestyle change without sacrificing the foods she enjoys the most. 

She shares, “Intention is the most powerful principle that rules my world. I do nothing without first thinking about why I’m doing it. What is the real motivation?”

She says that when something stressful occurs and she starts craving food, but she’s at her point limit for that day, she asks herself, “What am I really feeling? What is this really about?” 

When choosing the best weight loss regimen, WW and Oprah encourage others to hit the reset button and start fresh. Their 2022 mantra is “Live the life you love, lose the weight you want.”

Now, with the more personalized version of WW, you can add points when you make good choices like exercise, drink water, and choose a healthy snack, making this program more about a good life experience than strict regimens. 

6 Eating Habits Help Her to Lose Weight

Starts Her Day Off With Fruit

Oprah intentionally has breakfast with fruit to fuel her body for the day. Fruit is a preventative medicine with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that can boost metabolism. Yes, fruit is a metabolism booster!

Her favorites include strawberries, raspberries, passion fruit, bananas, and blueberries. 

Drinking Plenty of Water

Oprah is often seen in videos with her WW water bottle. This 64-ounce half-gallon container has written the hours of the day as goal markers and motivational phrases beside each hour to conquer daily water intake goals. 

She recently did a challenge with her house guests one day with these water bottles and documented who was drinking enough water throughout the day and who wasn’t. Staying hydrated is one significant way to meet weight loss goals while fueling your body and mind. 

She Grows Her Own Garden

Part of consistently eating healthy means needing easy access to good, nutritious foods. Growing and cooking from her own garden allow Oprah to eat fresh whenever she chooses. She even has enough to share her extra garden goods with her neighbors. Lucky them!

Creating Food Combinations for a Healthier Meal

If you’ve checked out the grocery store lately, you may have noticed Oprah’s food line, “ O, That’s Good!”  By discovering that instead of completely eliminating carbs such as pasta and potatoes from her diet, she can mix them with healthy alternatives, thus easing the craving for comfort, texture, and taste.

For example, she mixes mashed cauliflower with mashed potatoes and real pasta with vegetable pasta, increasing its nutritional power and decreasing the carbohydrate intake. 

Snacks That Satisfy 

Oprah enjoys crunchy snacks, and a couple of healthy options she chooses are nuts and jicama.

Nuts are full of protein, fiber, and healthy fats that can help a person feel fuller. Long-term incorporation of nuts in your diet is linked^[3] to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and less weight gain. 

Jicama, also known as the Mexican potato, can be cooked or eaten raw and has quite a crunch. This nutty and sweet flavored vegetable is low in calories and high in fiber, an excellent combination for promoting weight loss. 

Seafood

Oprah has spoken of her love of seafood, and with it being low in points on the WW scale, she can eat it often. Her favorite seafood dishes are cod, shrimp, sea bass, and salmon.

“You have to plan for your life,” Oprah says. “You really have to plan for your meals.”

The Bottom Line

So, how much does Oprah Winfrey weigh? While there are no clear current reports on her weight, now at age 68, the Emmy Award winner knows that staying healthy is not just about physical looks but your emotional and spiritual health as well. 

Oprah has been a realistic icon for women looking to drop pounds. Be wary of clickbait claims that she has recently launched “Oprah Winfrey weight loss gummies,” specifically keto diet gummies, or that she’s endorsing any of them.

These companies have crafted a scam, and she has not promoted or sold any gummies to aid in weight loss. Instead of relying on fat burner supplements or pills for weight loss, it’s essential to know they may help increase the speed of your weight loss in combination with a healthy diet and exercise, but an endorsement by Oprah is a scam. 

While there’s no Oprah Winfrey weight loss supplement on the market right now, she has crafted many of her culinary combinations into meals sold at grocery stores.

Let’s end with an inspirational quote from Oprah regarding her weight loss journey. “It’s not about getting to a number on a scale – it’s about creating a vision for how you want your life to look.”

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