Sheinelle Jones’ second day as the fourth of TodayThe new cohost of a very special guest appearance.
Oprah Winfrey stopped by the NBC morning show to promote her new book, Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like to Be Freewhich she co-authored with endocrinologist and associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine Dr. Ania M. Jastreboff. Reflecting on her weight loss journey, Winfrey shared some surprising side effects she experienced while taking a GLP-1 drug.
Jastreboff stated that the most common symptoms for people taking weight loss medication include nausea, diarrhea, and constipation.
“I never had nausea or diarrhea, but I had a third one,” Winfrey said. “I finally found, for me, what is the right combination of magnesium and water. I have to drink a lot of water. I have a gallon of water a day.”
According to Winfrey, she has to finish drinking her gallon of water before 4 pm, or else she’ll be up all night. While drinking lots of water makes Winfrey’s kidneys “very happy,” Jastreboff said there are other ways to “reduce nausea” while taking weight-loss medication.
“The most important way is to work with your health care provider and go up very, very slowly. So, start slow, go slow. If you’re feeling nauseous, then don’t increase the dose,” she explained. “And there are other things – don’t eat past the point of fullness, make sure you’re monitoring which foods can make you worse. All these different things can reduce the side effects.”
Winfrey revealed that she gained 20 pounds last year after coming off her medication to test whether she would maintain her weight loss without the drug. “If you’re taking blood pressure medication, you get your blood pressure to the level that your doctor says is healthy for you, you come off the medication, your blood pressure will go up,” she said. “The same thing is true for this. I know that because I tried.”
Earlier in the episode, Winfrey said she has a new sense of freedom since starting a GLP-1 prescription. “The new freedom is to understand that all those years that I had suffered and I was on the tabloids every week and I enjoyed them and was the center of everyone’s jokes, and I thought it was because of my lack of will,” she told Jones and Jenna Bush Hager. “[I thought] ‘What is wrong with me that I can be successful in so many ways and I can’t win this thing?’ Now I know it has nothing to do with willpower. It has everything to do with your biology.”
Winfrey said she hopes her and Jastreboff’s new book will help change the conversation about obesity and weight loss. “Back in the day, when I first started The Oprah [Winfrey] Showin ’86, ’87, we did our first show about alcoholism. And people in the audience were like, ‘Oh, put the bottle down,'” she recalled. “People didn’t recognize — they refused to recognize — that alcoholism is a disease. And so, now we are saying the same thing about obesity.”
Winfrey continued, “It’s a disease. It’s a chronic disease. You have to manage it. And even when you think you’ve reached your goal weight, it’s not the answer because what the drugs do is manage the set point in your body.”
Today With Jenna & SheinelleWeekdays, 10 am/9c, NBC
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