Lizzo has always advocated for body positivity or neutrality, especially when her own body began to change.
Since 2023, the singer has been vocal on social media and in interviews about what she’s dubbed her “weight release journey.” Careful to not use toxic language that might negatively impact her young fans, the “Truth Hurts” artist reminded her followers early on that the ultimate goal was always to improve her mental health.
“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, exercise has helped me shift my mind, not my body,” she said in a May 2023 TikTok video. “My body is gonna change, everyone’s bodies change. That’s life.”
In January 2025, Lizzo shared on Instagram that she had reached her initial weight release goal and was ready to set a new one.
Here’s everything Lizzo has said about her “weight release” journey.
She started her weight loss journey in 2023
Lizzo/ Instagram
During an April 2025 appearance on On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Lizzo said that her “intentional weight release journey” had taken about a year and a half.
Early on, Lizzo shared on TikTok that while she had always loved working out, she had started to take the physically demanding part of her job more seriously.
“I think a lot of people see a fat person that way and immediately just assume everything they’re doing is to be thin,” the singer said in the clip. “I don’t ever want to be thin. Will my body fluctuate from this size? Will I get a little smaller depending on some of the choices I make or a little bigger, depending on some of the choices I make in my life? Yes, I’m used to fluctuating.”
She tried using Ozempic
Lizzo/ Instagram
When Lizzo started sharing her weight loss progress on social media, some of her followers questioned if she was taking Ozempic, an FDA-approved prescription medication for people with type 2 diabetes that has also become popular in Hollywood for weight loss.
The singer cheekily clapped back at the comments in September 2024 with a clip of herself smiling for the camera soundtracked by a popular TikTok audio of Christoph Waltz’s character in Django Unchained saying, “It’s like a reward.”
She captioned the post, “When you finally get Ozempic allegations after 5 months of weight training and calorie deficit.”
Lizzo later admitted on the Just Trish podcast in June 2025 that she briefly used Ozempic.
“I’ve tried everything,” she revealed. “It’s just the science, for me, calories in vs. calories out. Ozempic works because you eat less food. It makes you feel full. So, if you can just do that on your own and get mind-over-matter, it’s the same.”
She’s lost weight “very slowly”
Lizzo/ Instagram
In a March 2024 interview with The New York Times, Lizzo revealed that she had been dieting — and that her approach had been anything but a quick fix. Instead, Lizzo said that she had “been methodical” and was “losing weight very slowly.”
“My body has been changing very slowly, but I don’t think people were paying attention,” the singer said during her podcast interview with Shetty. “I would show different things like … my workouts or I’d show, like, what I eat in a day … But I think we got to remember, everybody not seeing your s— all the time.”
Lizzo continued, “Everybody’s not privy to what you’re going through. They’re not with you every day. So when I pop out on a red carpet or when a video suddenly goes viral and my body is different, it appears like it was overnight. It appears sudden.”
She’s vocal about the ups and downs of weight loss
Lizzo/ Instagram
Lizzo has been candid about how physical changes are just part of her journey. She told The New York Times that her idea of body positivity had “evolved into body neutrality.”
“I’m not going to lie and say I love my body every day,” the singer said. “The bottom line is, the way you feel about your body changes every single day. There are some days I adore my body, and others when I don’t feel completely positive.”
She started pilates to “heal” her back
Neilson Barnard/Getty
Lizzo shared in a December 2023 TikTok that she had started doing pilates to help “heal” her back. She also does strength training, takes long walks and jumps rope. Though Lizzo likes to switch up her workouts, she said she tries to move her body every single day.
“I’m taking the time every day to put some love into my body,” she told The New York Times. “There is never a day when I regret taking a walk or doing some Pilates.”
She reached her health goal in January 2025
Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty
While everyone else was making their new year’s resolutions, Lizzo had reached hers. In January 2025, the “About Damn Time” singer shared two mirror selfies on Instagram overlaid with screenshots from an app that showed her weight goal had been achieved.
“I did it,” she captioned the post. “Today when I stepped on my scale, I reached my weight release goal. I haven’t seen this number since 2014! Let this be a reminder you can do anything you put your mind to. Time for new goals!”
The stats in her photos revealed that the star had lowered her body mass index by 10.5 and had lost 16 percent of her body fat.
She doesn’t use the term “weight loss”
Lizzo/ Instagram
Throughout her journey, Lizzo has been open about the intentional way she talks about losing weight. Rather than calling it “weight loss,” Lizzo uses the term “weight release” as a more holistic way to describe the changes she’s made to her health — a perspective shift that her boyfriend, Myke Wright, taught her.
“My man, he’s so funny. He was the one that brought it to my attention at first. Because at first I was like, ‘Oh my gosh I lost five pounds’ and he was like, ‘Where did it go?’ ” Lizzo told Shetty. “It’s like, I don’t think I want to lose anything. I think I want to win. I think I want to gain.”
The singer went on to say that she is “very intentional” about how she talks about her body because she doesn’t want to negatively impact her younger fans.
“Even me releasing the weight has affected people and I take that seriously,” Lizzo concluded. “And because of that I want to transmute it into something that makes people feel comfortable and less afraid of it.”
She focuses on “calories in versus calories out”
While talking about her weight loss journey during a TikTok Live in April 2025, Lizzo shared that keeping a close eye on what she was consuming was important, especially when it came to her “calories in versus calories out.”
That led her to discover that her habit of drinking “two to three” large Starbucks drinks per day meant she was drinking up to 1,200 calories daily, and found that in order to lose weight, she “had to start applying a calorie deficit, because I was prone to binging.”
She later talked about how getting control of her anxiety was another piece in her weight loss puzzle.
“I loved to distract myself with people. I loved to distract myself with food. I loved to distract myself with drinking. I loved to distract myself with problems that I would create. I would love to do that. And I stopped doing that,” Lizzo said. “And I just focused on me.”
In July 2025, Lizzo spoke with Women’s Health and revealed the three meals that helped her reach her weight loss goals.
For breakfast, she has two scrambled eggs, chicken sausage and a cauliflower hash brown. For lunch, the singer rotates between two meals: a shredded Thai chicken salad and lettuce wraps stuffed with tuna or sliced chicken breast.
As for dinner, Lizzo typically eats turkey meatloaf with cauliflower mashed potatoes and green beans — a meal she tries to consume before 5 p.m.
“I have GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease], so my body needs time to digest food before I go to sleep, so acid doesn’t roll up to my throat,” she told the magazine.