When people set out to lose weight, it isn’t necessarily about the number on the scale, but rather how they’re hoping to feel by embracing healthier habits.
But if they want to celebrate a certain number when they reach their goal, or notch their progress along the way, that’s certainly their right.
“I started at 540 pounds and I was 357 pounds this morning,” Jelly Roll told the audience April 9 at Pat McAfee‘s Big Night Aht show. “I’m gonna lose another 100 pounds and go skydiving with my wife in Sweden, baby!”
And if that’s what the 6-foot-1 singer (born Jason DeFord) and his spouse Bunnie XO (real name Alyssa DeFord) want, more power to them.
John Goodman went on a similarly righteous quest to focus on his health in recent years, determined to break his previous cycle of yo-yo dieting.
“In the old days, I would take three months out, lose 60 or 70 pounds, and then reward myself with a six-pack of Bud or whatever,” he detailed to ABC News in 2016, “and just go back to my old habits.”
Meanwhile, Lizzo revealed in January she had shed 16 percent of her body fat and has been happily showing off her slimmer figure—while also brushing off critics who’ve accused her of betraying the body positivity movement she touted.
“So they’re like, ‘Oh she’s not body-positive anymore,'” the “About Damn Time” singer told Andy Cohen in March on SiriusXM’s Love in Real Life. “I’m not fat anymore. But I’m still body positive because the body positive movement was actually created by a sub-group of people…who were told we shouldn’t exist and we weren’t good enough because our bodies were bigger, or disabled or even queer and trans people.”
The movement, Lizzo explained, “was about me bucking against society telling me I shouldn’t exist I shouldn’t wear leotards, and I shouldn’t like how I look.”
Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O’Donnell, who have been candid about their struggles to lose weight, have embraced the latest advances in medication, marveling over the results.
“I cant believe this is me now,” Rosie captioned a photo of her slimmer self in May, explaining that she’s taking Mounjaro for her diabetes “and one of the side effects is you lose weight.”
Then there are the likes of Tammy Slaton, whose celebrity status stemmed from her willingness to share her experience with the world on her and sibling Amy Slaton‘s TLC series 1,000-Lb Sisters.
“When I was at my heaviest, I was 700-plus pounds,” Tammy said on their April 15 episode. “Right now, I’m weighing in at 238.”
But even when an entire TV show is built around weight, the subject is still deeply personal. And whatever the motivation to lose it, it’s imperative to find an approach that suits the individual, as there is no such thing as one size fits all on the road to better health.
Yet even when the goal is more about how a person feels on the inside, the results on the outside can be undeniable. Check out these dramatic celebrity weight loss transformations:
Trevor Larcom
The Fresh Off the Boat alum used to weigh 300 pounds and lost 130, showcasing his journey on TikTok.
Tammy Slaton
Tammy Slaton may be a star of TLC’s 1,000-Lb. Sisters, but she didn’t want to be beholden to that title forever.
“I’m down 500 pounds now, around 500,” the 38-year-old said in a confessional on an April 2025 episode of her show. “When I was at my heaviest, I was 700-plus pounds. Right now, I’m weighing in at 238.”
She underwent bariatric surgery in 2022, a choice her physician has praised as the right one for her.
“Tammy has consistently demonstrated her dedication to making sustainable lifestyle changes to maximize the benefits of her surgery,” Dr. Eric Smith told People in October 2024. “I’ve emphasized the importance of making small, daily adjustments to ensure not only her continued progress but also her long-term success. She’s truly committed to her health journey.”
Jelly Roll
It seems as if every time Jelly Roll hits a red carpet, he’s down a sizable slice of weight.
“I started at 540 pounds and I was 357 pounds this morning,” the singer born Jason DeFord told Pat McAfee in April 2025 during the ESPN host’s Big Night Aht live show. “I’m gonna lose another 100 pounds and go skydiving with my wife in Sweden, baby!”
The 6-foot-1 artist admittedly needed to overhaul his relationship with food to get where he wanted to go. “I’ve always said that I believe obesity is directly connected to mental health,” he explained on an October 2024 episode of On Purpose With Jay Shetty. “I know how easy it is for people to go, ‘Just quit eatin’ so much, just work out, it’s so easy!’ I wish I looked at food that way.”
Weight was still “the mountain” in front of him, Jelly Roll noted, but his lifestyle changes were working.
“I’m learning, I’m being very diligent with it,” he said. “I’m taking it serious, I’m drinking a bunch of water, I’m cold plunging, I’m eating right, I’m doing good.”
Al Roker
Al Roker wasn’t kidding around with the title of his cookbook Recipes to Live By.
Because having lost a hard-fought 100 pounds, the longtime TODAY weatherman literally walks the walk (aiming for at least 10,000 steps a day), watching what he eats and fitting in some sort of exercise on a daily basis.
“My mantra is ‘something is better than nothing,’” he told People in a June 2025 interview. “Maybe you’ll be running marathons or entering weight-lifting contests, but I think most people just want a level of fitness that improves their quality of life.”
Roker underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2002 to get his fitness journey underway, but, he acknowledged, “There’s no magic bullet.”
Surgery is “not the end,” he advised. “You’re still going to have to put in the work.”
Jason Kelce
While previously known for the tush push, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce has been busy showing off his buff bod.
Not that the athlete wasn’t in fighting shape during his 13-year career in the NFL, but he’s down at least 25 pounds from his playing weight of 295, sharing during the 2025 Truist Championship pro-am golf tournament in Philly that he weighed around 270.
All of which is part of his retirement plan. “I feel like for some reason, 250 to 260 feels like I’ll be still big and be happy with the way I look without having a six-pack,” Kelce told GQ in June 2024. “But I’ll still be able to have that stature a little bit.”
Really, the most important aspect for the father of four daughters with wife Kylie Kelce was to be able to keep pace with his kids.
Then weighing in at 277, “my back already feels better,” he shared. “My knees already feel better. So another 20 pounds hopefully will make that much more adept at playing with my children.”
Rosie O’Donnell
It wasn’t just a change of scenery that did the trick for Rosie O’Donnell, who relocated with her family from the U.S. to Ireland.
“I’ve lost more weight here,” she shared in a March 2025 TikTok. “I am on Mounjaro for my diabetes and one of the side effects is you lose weight.”
The former View cohost had recently gone shopping for better-fitting clothes in Dublin. “I’m one of those people,” she said, “who’s always had a weight issue and now that I’m a size large, instead of an XL or a 2XL, I find it shocking.”
Jazz Jennings
Jazz Jennings embarked on a diet-and-fitness journey in 2022, explaining on Instagram two years later, “I finally care about myself after years of neglecting my health. I had truly let myself go when it came to eating. I am so proud of my weight loss, and I feel my confidence radiates through.”
In August 2024, the I Am Jazz star shared that she had lost almost 100 pounds and was “so proud” of her progress.
Christopher Schwarzenegger
It turns out Christopher Schwarzenegger is a chip off the ol’ muscly block.
The youngest of Arnold Schwarzenegger and ex-wife Maria Shriver’s four kids together laid low while he dropped 30 pounds, but now he’s back in action.
“It’s not an overnight thing, but it took a lot of trial and error,” he shared in May 2025 at the Inaugural Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit, noting that just giving up bread made a big difference. “And even still to this day, when [I look at] before and after photos, I don’t feel like I’m an ‘after’ yet.”
Meanwhile, Christopher did not let a certain seven-time Mr. Olympia in on his plan.
“I could never go and say to him, ‘You’re overweight,’” dad Arnold told The Times in June 2025. “We just kept introducing healthy foods. We introduced him always to the gym and all of that kind of stuff. And then, out of nowhere, he decided that he wanted to be lean. And now he is. So that is of course fantastic, the self-discipline and the self-motivation. I always felt one day it will have to come from him—and it did.”
Chrissy Metz
Chrissy Metz doesn’t like to run “unless I’m being chased,” she quipped, but she’s a big fan of strength training—and working out is part of the regimen that resulted in her losing 100 pounds.
“I want to age the best way that I can, and I want to be strong,” the This Is Us alum told DailyMail.com in April 2025. “And that’s really the impetus behind any of it.”
To Metz, aging gracefully means “staying strong and flexible,” so she tries to be active every day.
John Goodman
Being a big teddy bear of a guy was part of the package when John Goodman starred on Roseanne in the 1990s, at one point “pushing 400” pounds, as he told David Letterman in 2010. By the time The Conners premiered in 2018, however, family patriarch Dan Conner had made a few lifestyle adjustments.
Goodman quit drinking in 2007, the first step on his road to getting in better shape, while his favorite activities included boxing and walking his dogs.
“I’m breaking a sweat but I’m not going nuts,” he told Peoplein 2010, sharing he had lost about 100 pounds working out six days a week and cutting sugar out of his diet.
Overall, the 6-foot-2 actor has lost about 200 pounds since he was at his peak weight.
“I just got tired, sick and tired of looking at myself,” Goodman told ABC News in 2016. “You’re shaving in the mirror and you don’t want to look at yourself. It gets dangerous.”
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has been sharing the highs and lows of her weight loss journey for decades.
From donning skinny jeans and rolling out a wagon loaded with 67 pounds of fat to wow her Oprah Winfrey Show audience in 1988, to buying a stake in WeightWatchers in 2015, she has used her platform to keep the conversation going.
And taking on the topic du jour, she revealed in March 2024 on An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution that, along with eating smaller portions and staying active, she wastaking medication to help regulate her weight.
“It’s not just one thing,” she said of her secret to staying fit, “it’s multiple things.”
Her goal with the special, Winfrey explained, was to “start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment—to stop shaming other people for being overweight or how they choose to lose or not lose weight—and more importantly to stop shaming ourselves.”
Lizzo
Lizzo simply wanted to feel better from head to toe.
“Once I started working out for mental health, to have balanced mental health or endorphins, so that I don’t look at myself in the mirror and feel ashamed of myself, and feel disgusted with myself,” the “Good as Hell” singer explained in a May 2023 TikTok, “exercise has helped me shift my mind, not my body.”
She acknowledged in a January 2025 TikTok that she was on an “intentional weight loss journey,” her goal was simply to be the best version of herself.
“Even at the end of my weight loss journey, I’m not going to be considered thin by any means,” Lizzo said. “I will still be considered morbidly obese on the BMI and little bros on the internet are still going to call me ‘big backed.’ But I will be happy.”
A second later, the video jumped to Lizzo exclaiming, “And I am happy,” as she showed off a screen showing her body fat had gone down by 16 percent and she’d shaved 10.5 points from her Body Mass Index (BMI).
“Let this be a reminder that you can do anything—anything—you set your mind to,” she added. “Now I guess it’s time to set new goals.”
