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After years of struggling with body image and navigating the public's perception of her physical appearance, Valerie Bertinelli is talking about the power of body positivity in light of her own weight loss. "I have dealt with judgment my entire life starting from when I was a young girl. It has taken me a long time to realize that my judgment, with patient discernment, is the only judgment that counts," she captioned her .
The actor is honing in on her appreciation for her body. “For the first time in my life, I love my body as it is. It’s not the 20 year old body that I hated and it really is a shame that I hated that beautiful body.
Yes, it was a very different body than the one I now inhabit, but it hadn’t yet been through the journey I needed to go through,” she wrote. That same month, she posted a of herself sporting underwear and a bra on Instagram. She wrote, in part, that she accepts and appreciates "every lump bump wrinkle and saggy part" of her body.
How did Bertinelli shift her mindset around her weight? Read on for everything she's shared during her weight-loss and body acceptance journey. Bertinelli began to realize she had an unhealthy relationship with food, so she strived to shift the way she thought about eating. “It’s not the food that’s bad for us.
It’s how, or why, we’re eating it," she told in April 2024. "If we’re eating it unconsciously, if we’re eating it to soothe an emotion." The star said she turned to food to cope with emotional pain, and found herself eating premade meals, like frozen pizza and grocery store sushi, over cooking at home.
“And if I try to push it away, shove it away, eat it away, the feeling’s not going to go anywhere,” she said. “It’s going to pop up again.” In an interview with that same month, Bertinelli said it’s important for people to realize that food itself doesn’t necessarily make you gain weight.
Rather, it’s your eating habits themselves. “What changes your jean size is how you use food to deny your feelings and numb your feelings, period. And until I learned that, my life is not going to change,” she said.
In 2010, Bertinelli . Over a decade later, she took to to share an inspiring message about reigniting her passion for fitness. “So just 12 years ago, I did a marathon.
But you know what? You got to start somewhere, I’m not embarrassed,” she said in the video while walking on a treadmill. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” While speaking with in April 2024, the star said she's done "putting the burden on the food of being good or bad.
" "I used to be afraid of apples and peanut butter because I was told in certain diets that they were bad for me. It’s an apple for Christ’s sake. It’s peanut butter.
It’s got protein in it. It’s like stop," she said. "The same thing with bananas.
I said this before, it’s like I was afraid of eating bananas because of all the carbs," she continued. "Stop it. Eat the f------banana.
It’s good for you, it’s got potassium, it’s got vitamins." Bertinelli shared that she would rather create sustainable healthy habits than go on a crash diet. “I’ve learned patience,” she told in April 2024.
“Stop with the ‘lose ten pounds in a week.’ Why would you want to? If you want to start taking care of your emotions and your head and your heart, do that, and watch yourself release the weight.” The 64-year-old knows it’s hard to be patient when you have a weight-loss goal in mind, but she said it’s worth the wait.
“Maybe it could have gone quicker, but why do I need to go quicker?” she said. “Unless you do the emotional and mental work, weight is not going to stay off.” Pilates is one of many ways Bertinelli fuels her body and mind.
In December 2023, the star of herself working out at a Pilates studio and offering an inspiring message afterward. "No matter how hard it is to get there, I always feel so much better about myself once I'm done," she said. Bertinelli echoed that same statement in the caption, writing, “Exercise is not just for your body.
It can also soothe your soul. 🤍💪🏼.” After Bertinelli didn't drink for a month in January 2023, she showed her followers how it helped her lose weight.
“So, here’s a nice little side effect to Dry January,” she said in a . “These jeans that I’m wearing were so tight a few months ago that I couldn’t comfortably button them. Now, they are so loose, it’s time for me to go down a size.
" Bertinelli has now given up alcohol for good. In September 2024, she told that aging was part of the reason she decided to stop drinking. “I think the older you get, the less you really want to really be putting that in your body.
I mean, anybody can do whatever the heck they want, but I feel better,” she said. Bertinelli believes the term "cheat day" is misleading, and that indulging “has been given a bad rap,” as she told in a story published in April 2024. “It’s not cheating.
We need to allow ourselves the pleasure of our lives. Food is a big, important part of my life,” she said. In the same month, Bertinelli told that she’s learned indulgences are an essential part of a healthy diet.
“I don’t deny myself anything anymore,” she said. “I think what do I want, as opposed to what am I going to eat because I need to be careful about calories. If I want pasta alle vongole, I’m going to make that.
And I’m not going to feel one ounce of guilt about it.” While in September 2024, Bertinelli admitted that she "used to hate" her body when she was younger, and described the negative effects that attitude had on her mental health. “And what does that do to your body, what does that do to your brain when you’re constantly going ‘Oh, I hate this, I hate that, I hate my thighs, I hate this’? And someone once said to me, ‘What’s your favorite part of your body?’ and I said, ‘My ankles.
’ That was it,” she said. Bertinelli said that while she had a "beautiful body" when she was young, she's learned to appreciate her body even more with age, cellulite and all. “I so love my brain, and my body carries my brain.
I so love my heart, and this body is what carries my heart. It’s aging, that’s what we all do," she said. Bertinelli has learned to not get fixated on the size of her clothes, as "health is not a body size.
" “Health is not the number you see on the scale. Your worth as a human being isn’t dictated by your body,” she in a since-deleted Instagram video in 2023. The celebrity chef elaborated on her state of mind, saying, “I’ve never felt more beautiful, more at peace, more mentally and emotionally stable than I do today, and I’m wearing my ‘fat clothes.
'” Weight-loss medications like Ozempic have become increasingly popular in recent years. While Bertinelli told in April 2024 that she hasn't tried them, she's fully supportive of anyone who wants to give them a go. “I think whatever people need to help them, if it helps, use it,” Bertinelli told the outlet.
That same month, she told , “If somebody wants to use weight-loss drugs, if they want to use Jenny Craig, if they want to use Weight Watchers — I am not here to judge how anybody wants to release weight from their body." Chrissy Callahan covers a range of topics for TODAY.com, including fashion, beauty, pop culture and food.
In her free time, she enjoys traveling, watching bad reality TV and consuming copious amounts of cookie dough..
