Ricki Lake: From Size 24 to Skinny

Jan. 5, 2011 — -- Ricki Lake weighed 200 pounds when, at age 19, she was cast as the happily heavyset Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 John Waters movie, Hairspray. The now-svelte Lake recalls how, at the time, she was proud of her size.

"Being fat worked, and I think that was what was confusing for me for a long time in my career," Lake, 42, said.

Today, Lake says she looks and feels better than ever -- she's lost more than 130 pounds from her peak weight and has kept it off for 15 years.

"To have almost 130 pounds on top, I mean, almost twice what I weigh, I can't fathom what that feels like today," she said. "Being a size 6 feels better than being a size 24."

But getting there was far from easy, and to understand her journey means going back to her childhood.

At age 6, Lake saw the musical "Annie," and it was "life changing." It was then she said she knew "I wanted to be on stage."

But it was also at that age that Lake suffered abuse, which she believes was at the root of her intial weight gain.

"I was sexually abused as a child, as a young child. And I think that is what contributed to my being overweight ... and obese, in the later years," Lake said. "I, even subconsciously, did not want to be attractive to men. And it was my way of, you know, protecting myself, I think ... and maybe stuffing my feelings with food."

She said her weight started to "creep up" at about age 9 or 10.

"I was still kind of cute, so I could pull it off, you know," she said. "Through my adolescence and, you know, later teenage years, I got bigger and bigger and bigger."

The way she was taught to eat, Lake said, also contributed to her weight gain.

"I had the worst, the worst eating habits," she said.

Lake said that she didn't want to blame her parents but added that "we did not sit down as a family."

"We ate out a lot and then when ... we didn't eat out, I would eat alone," she said. "And I would sneak food. Hungry Man dinners were a staple, sometimes I'd eat two. You know, I mean it was sort of pathetic."

Talking about this issue on "Good Morning America," Ricki Lake mistakenly used the term "juvenile diabetes" when she meant "type 2 diabetes in children." Click here to read Lake's statement to "GMA":