Oprah Winfrey recently went public with her decision to use weight loss medication to help maintain her size.
Oprah Winfrey is opening up about her struggle with body image and weight amid her rise to fame.
Upon hosting the State of Weight special for O Daily, the 70-year-old media mogul says she found out she was suffering from an actual medical condition that impacted her weight.
"There's something in the brain that allows people like myself to metabolize fat differently than other people and no matter what I do, I'm always going to go back to the set point that my brain thinks it needs to hold the weight," Winfrey explained on The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast .
The TV personality reflected on her iconic 1988 moment where she brought a wagon full of fat onto her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, to represent the 67 pounds she'd lost.
"I didn't have a morsel of food in five solid months on Optifast. Three days later, I was five pounds heavier and a week later, I was 10 pounds heavier," she shared. "That show happened in November and the week before Christmas, I remember Don Johnson — the Don Johnson of Miami Vice — was having a party and invited me and some members of my show, and I wouldn't go because I thought I was too fat to go."
Winfrey said after she went from 145 pounds to 157 pounds, "the shame started again."
A magazine cover that featured a photo of Winfrey and called her "dumpy, frumpy and downright lumpy" left the TV legend struggling with her looks and how she was perceived by the public.
"I ingested that. I swallowed it like it was a pill designed just for my body and I took in all the shame and I accepted that," she said. "Making fun of my weight was national sport for 25 years."
However, Winfrey has decided to change her views on her weight loss and her body.
"I just recently turned 70, and I'm not carrying it into the next decade," she said.
She also addressed her public decision to use weight loss medications to help maintain her size.
"I have used the medication. I use the medication as a maintenance tool," she shared. "Now I have given up on a number, and I just go with how I feel. I just feel like it's a tool that I will use if I feel myself getting beyond a certain point."
Prior to her weight loss special airing, Winfrey spoke with ET about her hopes for the TV event.
"I am so excited about this show that I am doing... on shame and blame and the weight loss revolution," Winfrey shared. "I am so excited about it because, as you know, I've spent years in this business and been shamed myself. And I just want people to be liberated, and know that, for so many people in this country who are suffering from weight and obesity, it's really not your fault -- it's your brain."
"So once you figure that out, you can begin to get help to manage it, however you choose to do that," Winfrey added. "So I want people to stop being blamed for the choices that they make about their health."
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