Oprah Winfrey reveals how her weight-loss medication works

Oprah Winfrey revealed that she gained quite a lot of weight last year when she stopped taking her weight-loss medication.

The US broadcaster, who turns 72 at the end of the month, had famously struggled with her weight for her entire life until 2023 when she began taking an undisclosed GLP-1.

She was inspired to take the medication, which reduces appetite by working on hunger hormones and silencing “food noise” after seeing a documentary depicted obesity as a disease rather than a lifestyle problem.

At her heaviest, she weighed 237lbs but after taking the medicine she lost around 50lbs.

However, speaking on US TV program The Today Show, Oprah revealed that when she stopped taking the medication last year, the weight began to come back and it was almost half of what she had lost.

She said: “I was off of the medications all last year, and I gained 20 pounds because I wanted to test it. Because everybody was saying, ‘you're going to gain the weight…’ I'm going to show them… I'm going to hike.”

“And then I was taking it, then I got off of it, and then I gained three pounds, and I gained five pounds, and I gained 10 pounds, and before you know it, the [food] noise was back,” Oprah explained.

Oprah revealed in 2023 that she started taking a GLP-1 agonist, a class of drugs that includes Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy, as a “maintenance tool” for her weight, along with diet and exercise changes.

While she never said which GLP-1 she used, she has credited the drug for helping her lose at least 40 pounds since starting the weekly jabs, because it calms her “food noise, or constant, intrusive thoughts about eating.”

She has also revealed that since taking a GLP-1, she has also stopped drinking alcohol, and the medication also inspired her to work out almost every day.

In the new interview, which is promoting her latest book: Enough: Your Health, Your Weight and What It’s Like to Be Free, Oprah describes food noise as “when you're just standing there, looking at the refrigerator and [thinking] ‘what can I eat? What can I eat?’”

Oprah Winfrey also said that during her time off of GLP-1s, she was “trying to eat more healthily, but still put the weight back on.' She said: 'If you're on blood pressure medication, if you stop your blood pressure medication, your blood pressure is going to go up. The same thing is true.”