Cynthia Bailey, star of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, has taken a traditional approach to losing weight after gaining a few extra pounds last year.
Bailey, 57, shared with E! News cohost Justin Sylvester that she recently embarked on a weight-loss journey after experiencing some weight gain. “I don’t know if it was the stress of shooting season 16 of Housewives that had me eating everything that I could find and definitely drinking everything I could find,” she said. “I gained a lot of happy weight. I’ve been in a relationship for the past 10 months now, and I started not to be able to fit in my clothes anymore. I’m on the other side of menopause. It’s like a lot of reasons.”
Like many of her fellow Bravolebrities, Cynthia initially tried injectable medications like Ozempic, which are commonly used for managing Type II diabetes, to help her lose weight. However, she soon found that the drug didn’t suit her. “I did want to take the shot initially because all my friends look great on the shot without question,” Bailey explained. “I tried it for a month. Honestly, for me, it didn’t work because I still like food, and I found I just had no interest in food. Food is something that I enjoy, and I just didn’t like the way it made me feel.”
Despite not enjoying the effects of Ozempic, Cynthia holds no judgment toward others using the drug to aid in weight loss. “Shout out to everybody else that is thriving on Ozempic, semaglutide, whatever,” she added. “But for me, it didn’t work. When I get my crab cake and my salad and my oysters and my BBQ ribs, I want to enjoy it.”
Bailey also mentioned that she didn’t want to rely on the medication long-term. “I didn’t want to have to depend on the shot. If I decided I didn’t want to be on it, I didn’t want to gain the weight back.”
Cynthia then turned to a more traditional approach: Weight Watchers. “I actually reached out to Weight Watchers because I needed a support system to help me,” she explained. “I couldn’t do it by myself. I kept trying to do it by myself, but it just wasn’t working. So it’s been great working with them, and I’m actually 10 pounds lighter already.”
For Bailey, the journey is not just about losing weight but about prioritizing her health. “As a woman of a certain age, health is always a priority for me and a focus for me,” she said. “I said, ‘This is not my healthy weight. Let me scale it back down and get back to the weight that I feel comfortable with.’ Although I do have these supermodel cheekbones still, I’m not trying to be skinny. I just want to get back into my clothes.”
