How Did Kathy Bates Lose Weight? Secrets Behind the Actress’ 100-Pound Weight Loss

Kathy Bates, who has previously admitted to years of eating poorly, revealed in 2024 that she had lost 100 pounds.

The Academy Award-winning actress changed her lifestyle and shared secrets behind her transformation.

What Health Issues Did Kathy Bates Have?

The Misery star admitted in an October 2024 interview with People that she “used to eat terribly” and revealed that her diet included “burgers and Cokes and pizza.” Not only has Kathy dealt with her weight throughout the years, she also experienced other health issues.

In September 2012, Kathy revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer two months earlier and had undergone a double mastectomy. Due to the double mastectomy, she has lymphedema — which causes swelling — in both arms. Her weight loss has been “a tremendous benefit for me,” she said. “I’m lucky that I don’t have to wear my compression sleeves every day. It’s such a thrill to be able to put my arm into a jacket and it fits.”

Around 2017, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. “[Diabetes] runs in my family, and I’d seen what my father had gone through,” she said. “He had had a leg amputation. One of my sisters is dealing with it very seriously, and it terrified me. It scared me straight.”

How Did Kathy Bates Lose Weight?

To lose weight, Kathy changed her eating habits and stopped eating after 8 p.m.

One of Kathy’s tricks to losing weight is to be mindful. “My niece told me this little secret, I guess it’s no secret, it’s a biological thing, that at some point when you’re eating, you have this involuntary sigh and that’s really your brain and your stomach communicating that you’ve had enough,” she told Us Weekly in 2019. “The trick is to pay attention to that and push your plate away.”

However, the weight didn’t come off immediately. The actress said that it was a while before she started to see results. “It took a few years,” the actress admitted. “I would say you have to be really patient … I don’t like the word willpower, but I like the word determination.”

She also plans to incorporate more workouts into her daily routine. “I have a treadmill here at the house, and I might try Pilates,” she told People. “People always ask, ‘Don’t you want a trainer?’ No, I really don’t. I don’t want anybody over my shoulder. It’s just very important to me to keep this going. I don’t want to slip.”

Did Kathy Bates Use Ozempic?

Kathy lost 80 pounds by the changes that she made to her lifestyle, and then she was able to shed an additional 20 pounds with the help of popular weight-loss drug Ozempic.

“There’s been a lot of talk that I just was able to do this because of Ozempic,” she told People. “But I have to impress upon people out there that this was hard work for me, especially during the pandemic. It’s very hard to say you’ve had enough.”

In her interview, Kathy said that this period of her life has been “so exciting,” adding, “It’s emotional.”