Actress Whoopi Goldberg says she lost the weight of “two people”, external<\/a> after taking the drug, and singer Kelly Clarkson, who says she was “chased” by her “doctor for two years” before she agreed to take it, are among the dozens of stars who have been open about taking the medication. <\/p>\nWilliams left the world of tennis behind back in 2022, when she played the final match of her career in the US Open, but she is still a powerhouse of strength and has wanted to reach what she describes as her “healthy weight” since the birth of her second child, Adina.<\/p>\n
In her interview with the Today Show, says she felt like her “body was missing something” and she wasn’t able to get down to what she felt comfortable with – despite intense training.<\/p>\n
Dr Claire Madigan, a senior research associate in behavioural medicine at the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, says elite athletes can find it hard to lose weight.<\/p>\n
“They are used to consuming a lot of calories and when they leave the sport they can find it difficult – it needs a change in behaviour.”<\/p>\n
Dr Madigan said it was good to see that Williams mentioned her weight loss was not just down to the drug – “she did have to focus on the diet and physical activity”.<\/p>\n
She added: “It’s great she is talking about how difficult it is to lose weight after having a baby.”<\/p>\n
But she wonders if Williams’s message might be lost and even demotivate some women. “The drugs are quite expensive and the average person may think here is an elite athlete, she’s got access to the gym, she’s got time, she has a nutritionist\u2026 and she’s had to use GLP-1s”.<\/p>\n
Dr Madigan also expressed concern that the potential side effects of taking the drugs – which can include gastrointestinal problems like vomiting and diarrhoea, and in rare cases, gallbladder and kidney problems – may not have been widely discussed in the publicity surrounding Williams’s announcement.<\/p>\n
Williams says she did not experience any side effects, and told Women’s Health magazine that she is finally seeing the benefits of all her hard work at the gym.<\/p>\n
“My joints are a lot better,” she says, “I just had my check-up, and the doctor said everything – including my blood sugar levels – looked great.”<\/p>\n
And, even though, she’s no longer breaking new ground on the tennis courts, she is still smashing her own records, with the help, she says of weight loss drugs. She’s currently training for a half marathon.<\/p>\n
“I am running farther than I ever have,” she says proudly.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Alex Kleiderman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Williams’ weight and her looks have been scrutinised throughout her life. The burden, the pressure to fit in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-86476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}