8 Biggest Celebrity Weight Loss Winners
From John Goodman to Shonda Rhimes, the biggest weight-loss transformations.
— -- This year's biggest losers are also winners.
That's because they managed to successfully battle the bulge and shed pounds. For some the shift has been dramatic -- a drop of more than 100 pounds. And all of them did it the old-fashioned way, without any medical intervention.
Genie Francis
At the start of this year, "General Hospital" star Genie Francis, 53, revealed that she had lost 30 pounds. Since then, the soap star told ABC News, "I’m thrilled to say that I have lost another 10 pounds!"
She did it using Nutrisystem, which, she said, has given her "a new lease on life."
"I’ve finally conquered my dieting demons. Dieting began for me at such a young age," Francis said. "When I was 14, they put my character Laura on a diet. It set off a whole pattern for me with crazy starvation dieting."
Best of all, Francis said, Nutrisystem has taught her how to eat.
"I'm more at peace with food than I have ever been in my lifetime," she said. "The fact that I can eat foods that I love on Nutrisystem helps satisfy my cravings making me less vulnerable to trigger foods. My advice is eat 5 small meals per day so you keep from being hungry. The approach keeps my nutrition on track."
Francis is also working out with a trainer, doing a variety of cardio, weight training and calisthenics, something she has grown to love.
"I am feeling more like my old self," she said. "I have more confidence, don't dread getting dressed or being on camera and have much more energy!"
Here are some of other big weight loss winners of 2015:
John Goodman surprised many when he hit the red carpet in October with his "Trumbo" co-stars at the BFI London Film Festival. The 63-year-old actor appeared significantly slimmer after losing a whopping 100 pounds.
Fitness guru Mackie Shilstone, who helped the star drop the weight, told the New York Post, "This didn’t happen overnight -- it’s been an ongoing process."
Goodman has been open about his struggles with weight. After dropping 100 pounds in 2010, his weight bounced back up to an all-time high of nearly 400 pounds by 2011.
This time, Shilstone, who has trained many athletes including tennis player Serena Williams, introduced Goodman to a "Mediterranean-style eating plan," which leans toward fish, nuts, olive oil, vegetables and fruit.
Shilstone told the Post, Goodman also exercised six days a week, mostly on an elliptical bicycle and treadmill, making sure to take at least 10,000 steps a day.
"There needs to be strategic planning," the health coach said. "This time, he really wanted to do it."
In her book, "Year of Yes," Hollywood powerhouse Shonda Rhimes wrote about the moment of utter humiliation that made her say "yes" to losing weight.
"I got on an airplane to go to New York, and first-class seat, you know, they’re bigger, they’re more comfy," Rhimes told "Nightline" last month. "And I tried to buckle the airplane seat belt, and it would not buckle, and I remember feeling horrified and thinking, 'What am I going to do?'"
After deciding to make a change, the creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" spent more than a year working on being healthy and changing her diet, joking that she even learned to love salads.
"It still sucks," she said. "I’m always going to want to eat fried chicken."
But now her life has changed in unexpected ways.
"I put my 3-year-old on my back and we galloped up and down the hall for, like, 20 minutes. And then I put her down for her nap," Rhimes said. "I sat down and burst into tears because I really sort of realized that, like, I don't know, a year ago that -- I might literally have died. That would've given me a heart attack."
People couldn't stop talking when Melissa McCarthy showed up at last summer's premiere of her movie "Spy" looking her slimmest ever.
Though the "Mike & Molly" star hasn't divulged how much weight she's lost or even when she started, she did tell "CBS This Morning" her secret to shedding the pounds.
"I truly stopped worrying about it," the comedic actress and mother of two said. "I stopped over-analyzing, over-thinking, over-doing anything. I kinda went back to when I was pregnant and I just stopped constantly being worried about it and I think there's something to kinda loosening up and not being so nervous and rigid about it that, bizarrely, has worked. I could've figured that out before 44, but whatever."
Meanwhile, the now 45-year-old star is helping others transform their lives with the launch of her clothing line, which includes plus sizes.
Penn Jillette
It wasn't magic that helped famed magician and illusionist Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller drop over 100 pounds.
Motivated by a trip to the hospital for high blood pressure, the 6-foot-7 star went from 330 pounds down to 225 in just four months by eating healthier and cutting down his intake to 1,000 calories daily.
Since reaching his goal weight by his 60th birthday in March, Jillette told People in April that he maintains his weight by avoiding processed grains and added sugar, among other things, and eating mostly salads and greens, along with brown rice. "I could probably have a steak or a doughnut every couple of weeks, but I just haven’t felt like it," he added.
Chris Pratt
After packing on the pounds, Chris Pratt transformed himself for 2014's summer blockbuster "Guardians of the Galaxy" -- and kept it off as the star of last summer's "Jurassic World."
Though he didn't share how much weight he lost, the 36-year-old star, who topped off at nearly 300 pounds, opened up to Men's Health UK about how he felt being overweight.
"When I was fat and unhappy, the only moments of respite I got were when I was eating. I felt great shovelling food down my neck and totally negative in between," he told the magazine. "Now mealtimes are sometimes lame, because that's the way it can be when you're eating healthily. But all the time between meals, I feel great."
Pratt blamed love for his initial weight gain.
"I put on weight because I'd fallen in love with a woman [his wife, actress Anna Faris] who loved to feed her man," he told Men's Health UK. "We were drinking a lot of wine and having fun. I was her little Hansel out in the woods and she was fattening me up to put me in the fire. It was like Momma Bear and Papa Bear. She would eat a little bit, I would eat all of mine and the rest of hers."
He kept adding on the pounds for his role as Andy Dwyer in "Parks and Recreation."
"I announced it to the whole cast, and then it became a bit of a game: How fat can I get and how fast," he told the magazine. "I would eat four burgers at every read. I became really fat and got up to almost 300 pounds. I had real health issues that were affecting me in a major way. It's bad for your heart, your skin, your system, your spirit."
This past summer Khloe Kardashian showed off her tight and toned physique in Complex magazine while revealing that she had lost some 35 pounds.
She did it through hitting the gym -- hard.
It does become addicting," she told Australian radio hosts Fitzy and Wippa during an interview for NOVA FM. "Once you start losing weight and seeing results, you're like, 'I want to see more!'"
Later, her trainer Gunnar Peterson told People, "Khloé gives as much to the gym as the gym gives to her. She’s in love with fitness."
Kardashian told People she works out almost ever day, including hour-long sessions with Peterson for five of those days. Outside the gym, she's made some major changes as well.
"As the changes have come, the diet has tightened up," Peterson said. "You can’t out-train a bad diet, and you can’t out-diet a bad lifestyle. She’s made better choices when she eats. She’s been more conscious about working on sleep habits. She hydrates better."
Wendy Williams
Slowly and steadily, Wendy Williams has dropped 50 pounds over three years. The talk host opened up this fall about how she did it.
"I find to be amazing because of all the crazy diets I've ever been on, none have ever been as effective as 'just push back, fatso, just stop eating so much, stop the extra sauces. Tuna fish doesn't need so much Miracle Whip,'" Williams revealed during a segment on "The Wendy Williams Show: After Show."
The 51-year-old host added that she has cut back on meat, refined sugars, diary and eating after dark.
"I no longer believe in fad diets, crash diets. I don't believe in diet pills -- I don't want my heart to race and pop out of my chest," said Williams, adding that she goes to the gym to do Pilates and cardio to maintain heart health. "Yes, I did have a jump start because years ago you know I did get the liposuction and the tummy tuck, but I have to say -- if there is a poster child for plastic surgery and the jump off to a new lifestyle, it would be me."
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