Yes, Oprah Winfrey has already discussed her weight loss, weight gain and weight in general – many, many once to. The difference this time, she says, is how little noise there is about food in her daily life and how little shame there is. In fact, it's so quiet that she could eat a whole croissant and just admit she had breakfast.
“Food noise,” for those who don’t experience it, is an almost continuous mental conversation about food that is believed to Tufts Medicinerarely shuts up and instead forces the person to “eat when they are not hungry, obsess over food, and feel shame or guilt about their eating habits.”
“This type of obsessive food-related thinking can ignore hunger cues and lead to overeating, undereating, or emotional eating—especially for people who are overweight,” Tufts said.
Winfrey told People in an exclusive interview published Tuesday, she said she used to think, “How many calories are in this croissant? How long will it take me to work it off? If I have a croissant, I won't be able to have dinner.” I’d still be thinking about that damn croissant!”
What has changed is that 2.5 years ago she accepted that she had a disease, obesity, and that this time there was something not called “willpower” to help her cope with it.
The talk show host used Mujaro, one of the GLP-1 drugs.from 2023. The weight loss version of Mounjaro is Zepbound, just as Wegovy is the weight loss version of Ozempic. Trulicity and Victroza are also GLP-1, and tablet version of Wegovy was just approved by the FDA.
When she started using injections, Winfrey said People she welcomed the arrival of a tool that would help her move away from the yo-yo path she'd been on for decades. Once she understood the science behind it, she said, she was “completely done with shaming from other people, and especially myself” after years of enduring public criticism about her weight.
“I was blamed and shamed,” she said at another point in the 2023 interview, “and I blamed and shamed myself.”
Now, on the eve of 2026, Winfrey says her mental shift is complete. “I realized that overeating does not lead to obesity. Obesity causes overeating,” she told the publication. “And it’s the most amazing and liberating thing I’ve experienced as an adult.”
She doesn't even share her current weight with the public.
She said Winfrey took a break from taking her medication in early 2024 and began gaining weight despite continuing to exercise and eat healthy. Thus, for Winfrey, the prescription for obesity will be extended for life. This seems to be her attitude: “C’est la vie.”
“I don’t punish myself all the time,” she said. “I hardly recognize the woman I have become. But she is a happy woman.”
She said Winfrey needs to take magnesium supplements carefully and make sure she drinks enough water. The shots are given weekly unless she feels she can last 10 or 12 days. But putting together clothes for the Australian leg of her Enough book tour was a real pleasure, not a journey down a shame spiral. She's even fully committed to regular exercise.
Plus, along with the “quiet strength” she gained in the absence of food-related noise, Winfrey experienced another cool side effect: she barely cared about her drinking.
“I was a big tequila fan. One night I literally drank 17 shots,” she told People magazine. “I haven't had a drink in years. The fact that I don't have the urge to drink anymore is amazing.”
So, back to this croissant. How did she feel after wearing the scarf?
“I didn’t feel anything,” she said. “The only thing I thought was, 'I need to clean up these crumbs.'”
