Oprah recently turned 70 – and celebrated with a run on the beach. In a recent social media post the Queen of Media herself shows off her slimmed down figure while getting exercise. “Celebrating 70 with a run on the beach. #healthisthebestgift. Thank you for all the birthday love,” she captioned the Instagram video. After struggling with her weight for many years, Oprah seems to be in the best shape of her life. Here is how she did it.
In a recent interview, Oprah discusses her body image struggles. “It was public sport to make fun of me for 25 years. I have been blamed and shamed, and I blamed and shamed myself,” she recently told People. Fashion critic Mr. Blackwell made a particularly nasty comment on his list. “I was on the cover of some magazine and it said, ‘Dumpy, Frumpy and Downright Lumpy,’ ” says Oprah. “I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.”
Oprah claims that she started taking a holistic approach to diet and exercise. “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,” she says. “I felt stronger, more fit and more alive than I’d felt in years.”
Winfrey also confirms that she added weight-loss medication to her regimen, explaining that 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. After reconciling the science, she “released” her “own shame about it” and had her doctor 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. “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.”
While she doesn’t use the term intermittent fasting, Oprah does practice time restricted eating. “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,” she tells People.
Oprah now understands her years of struggles. “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,” she says. “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”
“It’s everything,” Oprah says about her newly revamped approach to health. “I know everybody thought I was on it [weight loss drugs], 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.”