Melissa Joan Hart claimed she never expected to lose weight when she started her health quest, but after adjusting her diet, she found herself nearly 20 pounds lighter.
The 49-year-old Sabrina the Teenage Witch actor revealed in a new interview that, as she approaches her 50th birthday in April, she has started working out “really hard” as part of what she refers to as “a longevity journey.”
“I actually feel stronger and better than I have in a really long time,” Hart told People Magazine. “I lost about 18 pounds last year.”
She admitted, “I just wanted to feel better.” It wasn’t about losing weight. I didn’t think I could lose weight anymore because I was in midlife, going through perimenopause, and all of that. I was thinking, “Can I really lose weight?” “I do not think I can.”
“And in doing that, and discovering fasting and cutting sugars and alcohol — I haven’t had a drink in over a year,” she claimed, adding that she doesn’t even “enjoy drinking.” “So, why bother?”
“So I cut these things out of my life, and I started to feel better,” Hart told me. “And in doing that, I lost a lot of weight and kind of feel great.”
The Melissa & Joey alum isn’t the first celebrity who has said that a diet change helped them transform their bodies.
Last month, country music musician Jelly Roll, 41, spoke up about his astounding 275-pound weight loss journey, revealing that he immediately sought help from a therapist to address his “food addiction.”
“Even before I got into getting my blood work done, I went and got mental health therapy about my overeating,” he shared with Men’s Health. “I started treating my food addiction like what it was: an addiction.”
The “Liar” singer insisted on not using weight reduction medicines because he did not want a “asterisk” next to his name after losing weight. His comments were in response to the stigma associated with the use of GLP-1 medicine, which is routinely used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity by lowering blood sugar levels and suppressing hunger, and which some critics regard as “cheating.”
In recent years, some celebrities, including Chrissy Teigen, Oprah Winfrey, and Amanda Bynes, have openly disclosed their usage of weight loss medicines.
Serena Williams, 44, teamed with a telehealth firm last August and said that the company’s GLP-1 prescription helped her lose 31 pounds.
“I feel great,” she stated during an interview with People. “I feel quite good and healthy. I feel light, both physically and mentally.”
Meanwhile, other A-listers, such as Kate Winslet, have spoken out against the popularity of weight loss drugs.
Winslet told The New York Times in 2024 that she had no idea what the popular GLP-1 Ozempic was. When the outlet explained that the medication works by curbing a person’s appetite, she appeared “appalled” that Ozempic has “dampened” interest in food.
“Oh, my God,” she replied. “This sounds terrible. Let’s eat some more things!”
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