Gabourey Sidibe just set the standard for our weight loss goals this year and we are here for it. Since undergoing laparoscopic bariatric surgery in 2017, Gabby made it clear that her summer body is here to stay. Her latest selfies on social media prove that in reality, you're the only person stopping you from getting your sexy all the way on.
At her heaviest, the 36-year-old Empire actress weighed 320 pounds, but that all changed the day she and her brother were both diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Although she tried to ignore her symptoms in part, numbers don't lie; and Gabby soon learned that the number she saw looking back at her on the scale would ultimately send her to an early grave. In an interview with People in 2017, she said:
"I just didn't want to worry. I truly didn't want to worry about all the effects that go along with diabetes. I genuinely [would] worry all the time about losing my toes."
In Gabourey's book, she explained that she was eventually able to push through her fear and rediscover herself, but that wouldn't come without facing some hard truths. In order to change her life, she had to change her lifestyle, and this started with redefining her relationship with food. In her memoir released last year, she said:
"My surgeon said they'd cut my stomach in half. This would limit my hunger and capacity to eat. My brain chemistry would change and I'd want to eat healthier. I'll take it!. My lifelong relationship with food had to change."
Gabby also shared that her surgery was in no way the "easy" way out. Immediately after her surgery, she was put on a liquid-diet and found herself in a deep depression, but now, the Bedstuy-born entertainer has rediscovered that a change in perspective can be a beautiful thing. Along with switching up her meal plan, she also works with a nutritionist and a trainer to maintain her progress:
"Now, I eat about five times a day — I use meal plans that are really, really good, especially for when I'm busy. I cook a lot more. I talk to my nutritionist a lot. I just had an appointment with her on my laptop two days ago. We keep in touch. I tell her all the things I'm worried about. I have all these apps to help me keep a food diary."
Despite her dramatic weight loss transformation, Gabby is super serious about protecting her energy and becoming the best version of herself regardless of the number she sees on the scale. Gabby says that we'll never really know how much weight she gained or lost because it's none of our damn business:
"My starting weight and my goal weight, they're personal, so I'll keep them to myself because it's really not for everybody, and the weight I was, the goal weight, the size I wear, all that stuff — it's got to stay with me because if too many people are involved, I'll shut down, and I won't get anything done."
According to Gabby, her weight loss journey hasn't been a walk in the park, but she is a living, breathing reminder that crossing the finish line feels so much sweeter when you worked hard for it. Ultimately, she learned that true beauty radiates from the inside out.
"I think I saw my body as being outside of myself; it was like an enemy, beside me not in me. And now I've won. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time being mad at it. Because if I'd started treating it better sooner, I wouldn't have spent so many years hating myself, I wouldn't have allowed that negative energy to be around me. Life is really, truly all about choices and decisions. I wish I'd made the choice to love my body sooner. But I finally have."
Featured image by Getty Images.