American host and television producer, Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey On Letting Go Of Weight 'Shame And Blame': 'I Was So Ill-Informed' | The View
Winfrey discusses her biggest regret from her many years on television and shares the message behind her new book with Dr. Ania Jastreboff, 'Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like To Be Free.'
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About Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has expanded her podcast, "The Oprah Podcast," as part of a multi-year deal with Amazon, with two new episodes dropping weekly starting July 21, 2026. She told CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King that she changed her mind about taking on more work because she loves "the intimacy and the ability to have just immediate connection with your guests" in the podcast format. Winfrey described author Alan Levi, who wrote "Theo of Golden," as the best guest she has ever had, noting that he was "the only person who actually went and shook hands with every single member of the crew afterwards and wanted to hear their story." In a conversation with Keke Palmer, Winfrey discussed her past relationships, stating that "all of the bad relationships were my best teachers" and that if someone is in a relationship where they are "taking a lot of stuff," it is about what that person lacks in self-value. She also reflected on her career in a Vanity Fair interview, revisiting moments such as the car giveaway, her role in "The Color Purple," and the show's mission to let people know "that you're not alone, but that we all belong to each other."
Transcript (28 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
First of all, welcome back.
O
Oprah Winfrey0:01
It's so good to be here.
I
Interviewer0:03
I haven't been here since that great moment with Barbara.
O
Oprah Winfrey0:06
Barbara, that last hurrah. Yeah, that last hurrah.
I
Interviewer0:10
You know, in this book, well, you do know Oprah, this book, you write about how for years you've been ridiculed in the press and tabloids, made fun of by comedians for your weight struggles. You say that you accepted it because you actually thought you deserved it. Please explain that to me.
O
Oprah Winfrey0:26
I felt, and thank you so much for asking that, because the reason why I've done this book with Dr. Ana is because what I felt all those years, the shame and the blame that I gave to myself. I felt it because it was my fault. I felt it was my fault I was overweight. And so when comedians made fun of me, I felt like, well, it's okay for me to be the butt of their jokes because I should be losing the weight. I should be able to keep the weight off. And I felt embarrassed every time I put the weight back on. So I accepted it because I thought they were right.
You know that horrible moment that I had on the Tonight Show when I was so excited to be there for the first time and I bought these new shoes and I spent my entire paycheck on the Stuart Weitzman shoes and Joan Rivers said to me, 'Shame, shame, shame on you for not losing the weight. How did you gain the weight? How did you gain the weight?' And Joan, how did you gain the weight? And I remember leaving feeling embarrassed, but that she said I could come back if I lost 15 pounds. So I wasn't even like upset with her. I thought, I got to get on it. I got to lose those 15 pounds.
I
Interviewer1:39
Oh boy. Well, you were not alone. There were so many women like you and me and everybody else who couldn't lose. That's right. Even 10 we couldn't lose.
O
Oprah Winfrey1:46
So then I went back to the show, which was called AM Chicago at the time, and said, 'All right, everybody, we got to lose the weight.' And so the fact that I was ridiculed in the tabloids every single week for like 20 years, I just grew to accept that as a way of being.
I
Interviewer2:05
So Dr. Ana, you've been treating patients with obesity for over 15 years, I understand. And you say that one of the most important things you want people to understand is that obesity is not a choice. Something you were just saying, it's actually a disease. Yes. So can you explain that so people understand that?
D
Dr. Ana2:21
Yeah. Obesity is about biology. Obesity is not a choice. It is not a personal failure. It is not something that someone decides to have. Two-thirds of Americans did not wake up one morning and decide to have a disease. And I think understanding that obesity is a disease starts to shift from that.
O
Oprah Winfrey2:42
That's what shifted me. That's what got me to use the medications and to come out about using the medications and no longer feel shame about the medications because I've been on blood pressure medication for as long as I can remember because both of my parents have high blood pressure. High blood pressure runs in the Black community. A lot of people do have it. And if I stop taking the blood pressure medication, my blood pressure will go up. And I use it to manage my blood pressure in the same way that I use the GLP-1s to manage the obesity that I carry. So this is what I wanted everybody to know: that all these years I thought I was overeating. I was standing there with all the food noise, what I ate, what I should eat, how many calories was that, how long was it going to take. I thought that that was because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, if that is what you have, that is what makes you overeat. You don't overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat. Obesity causes you to have all of that food noise. And what the GLP-1s have done for me, and I know a number of other people, is to quiet that noise. Yeah. And so the new freedom is having the calmness and the space to do other powerful things in your life without worrying about what you just ate and how much it was and how many calories. Isn't it? We bored ourselves for years. Yeah, we bored ourselves for years. This book does a great job, I think, explaining the journey, explaining the biology. So, thank you. It's going to help so many people and take away that shame that people have even over taking the medication. People have shame over it.
I
Interviewer4:24
But let me ask you this, Oprah, because I think something that people love about you is that you were always very open about your struggles with weight and all the diets that you've tried. You said somewhere that you've tried almost every diet that exists, right? And then in 1988, I remember watching you roll that wagon full of animal fat onto the stage. You had lost 67 pounds from a liquid diet, which isn't sustainable we know now, but then it was amazing. But you say that that was the moment you regret the most.
O
Oprah Winfrey5:05
Yes. You know why? It's one of my biggest regrets because I think that moment contributed to the diet culture in a way to say, look at what I've done, now you can do it. And even though everybody said to me, 'Oh, you're going to put it back on.' Because I thought it was my fault. And because I always thought, like so many of you in the world are thinking, it's about willpower. It is not. Because I thought it was about willpower. I thought that moment had proven that I have the willpower because I went four months and I didn't eat a morsel of food. My regret is...
I
Interviewer5:41
Did you feel sick? Did you feel tired?
O
Oprah Winfrey5:42
No, I didn't, because you're drinking the liquid supplements still. But after a while, after the first four days, you actually get energy. But I'm not recommending it, okay? But I'm saying the reason I have regret for it is because I was so ill-informed. You know, and Maya Angelou always said, 'When you know better, you do better.' I now know better. And so that's why I've written enough to help people, or co-written with Dr. Ana, to help people understand: if you're still trying to do it through willpower, you're not going to make it.
I
Interviewer6:13
Yeah. And Dr. Ana, there are millions of people now taking these GLP-1 obesity medications. Many of my friends and family are. You say they target something called their 'enough point.' Can you explain what that is and how they work?
D
Dr. Ana6:26
Yes. Yes. And this gets at that biology that's so important. So our bodies are super smart. They are designed to survive. And so in order to survive, they have to carry a certain amount of fuel and they carry that fuel as fat. But how does our body know how much fuel or how much fat to carry? Well, our brain decides that. It sets a set point or an enough point where it thinks, 'Oh, now I have enough fuel. I have enough energy. I'm good. I'm going to survive. I'm not going to die. This is great.' But within our current obesogenic environment, an environment that is filled with ultra-processed food, lack of sleep, lack of physical activity, tons of stress, medicines that cause weight gain as a side effect, all these things push up the enough point. They push it up for many of us. So what do the medications do? Well, they work in the brain and what we think they do is they recalibrate that enough point so that it is lower. And so basically, as a consequence of that, we lose weight.
I
Interviewer7:25
Wow.
D
Dr. Ana7:26
So they lower the enough point and the weight follows. And that's exactly what happened with Oprah.
I
Interviewer7:31
You know, but some people can't lose weight on that drug. I know people.
D
Dr. Ana7:34
That is true.
I
Interviewer7:35
Does alcohol play a part in that? Because I notice if I have a glass of wine the night before and I get on the scale, I'm a pound heavier than I was the day before. So is that the alcohol? What?
D
Dr. Ana7:44
How much are you drinking, Joy? So, it's not the alcohol per se, although alcohol does have calories, but some people do not respond to the new medications. And there's a reason for that, and that's because there's not one type of obesity. There's many types of obesities, and the type of obesity that that person may have may not respond to that specific class of medications.
I
Interviewer8:05
Keep trying different ones.
D
Dr. Ana8:07
There are different medications that already exist. They've existed for a long time. They're just not quite as effective, but we use them together to help people treat their obesity in the world.
I
Interviewer8:18
Drinking has nothing to do with your problem.
D
Dr. Ana8:22
And there are many medicines in development, many new classes of medicine in development. So the important thing is to keep going, to not give up.