Many wondered what had brought about this result for the pop sensation and television host. The 38-year-old American singer and television personality Kelly Clarkson has recently sparked curiosity among fans, as the ex-winner of American Idol (2002) reported an impressive weight loss since joining The Voice as a coach in 2018. Swarming social media, fans were intrigued by the singer’s dramatic look, hungry to know the secret behind the change. In interviews given since she became a mother in 2014, Clarkson admitted that she has struggled with her weight all her life, often feeling uncomfortable about her appearance. These recent changes and the differences in her look have come as a great inspiration to fans, who want to know what led to such a drastic change.

The Decision to Prioritize Health

The most important reason for Kelly Clarkson’s weight loss is her commitment to her health. She’s made that clear in interviews, often saying that she wants to feel better for herself physically and mentally, or even saying that she wants to feel better for her kids.

How has Kelly, a working mom who juggles multiple obligations and has had a tough start to her adult life, able to make it work? How did she force herself into developing healthy eating habits and adhering to an exercise regime? Using some boundaries and better-planning, Kelly has not only been able overcome unhealthy habits, but she has also lost all the weight.

But besides setting a healthy example for her own kids and a very loyal – passionate – following of fans, through her examples and her semi-private displays of vulnerability, she’s helped many women see that they are more powerful than they currently believe. LA’s hardcore beach-body culture is nothing to sneeze at. Kelly made herself publicly vulnerable throughout her journey, sharing how hard she found it to work out bloody new knees, and how frustrated and angry she felt. Similar to scoliosis and gastroparesis survivor Alice’s story, Kelly’s work for ThinSolutions has become exceedingly more graduate school: she’s redefined herself so radically in the face of a debilitating disease that she’s found her own power. But these changes have also created some kind of self-other binary.

Embracing a Balanced Approach

Another thing that has been central to her weight-loss journey is an approach of balance. For Kelly, this has meant that she has invested in her mental and physical health – and in making changes that feel maintainable on a daily basis, not just in the short term or in extreme ways. Kelly wrote in one email: ‘I didn’t want to make extreme changes or deprive myself, but I knew that, if Tara didn’t place an emphasis on both the mental and physical side of losing weight, I would fail.’

Another part of Kelly’s balanced approach has been about working with experts – nurses, doctors and dieticians – to create a nutrition and workout plan that’s conducive to her individualistic needs and goals. As she learned new things about healthy eating, nutrition and fitness during her journey, Kelly entered the mind frame of someone who is actually educated about the techniques she’s using, rather than someone who just accepts a diet ‘because it works’. Kelly had the experts on her side to lean on and turn to when things got tough, giving her the resources she needed to succeed. We all can fall into a trap of depriving ourselves and over-effecting behaviors with visions of grapefruit-only futures, but in the long run, the support of a doctor or nutritionist can keep you on track and help you meet your goals.

Along with a strong emphasis on healthy but realistic food choices and regular exercise, Kelly has also focused on the importance of mental and emotional well-being when it comes to her weight loss. By being mindful, taking care of herself and practising stress management techniques, she has been able to break maladaptive habits of emotional overeating and negative body image. In this way, she has initiated the change from inside out, which gives her sustainable outcomes in her healthy intervention.

Staying Motivated and Consistent

Any weight loss journey inevitably involves some ebbs and flows and, for Kelly Clarkson, that’s meant that at times she’s struggled to stay inspired, accountable and motivated. An exercise she does, for instance, involves creating a gallery wall in her home filled with pictures of inspirational women who have motivated her during her weight loss. Her most recent post this summer shows an additional note to the gallery wall: ‘It’s not a journey that you go on and then come back from. It’s a life choice.’ For those of us who haven’t experienced stardom, or the pressure of having paparazzi follow us from the gym to our home, it’s much easier to stay dedicated to physical activity, finding support and, when needed, a dose of rejection, to push us to do more. This is one of the biggest challenges of weight management – maintaining the motivation and determination that gets you off your couch or out of bed and makes you move, week after week, month after month.

To keep going, Kelly has had to celebrate ‘micro-wins’ (or small, achievable goals that allow for occasional indulgences or treats) and maintain her long-term vision for ‘healthy vitality’. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the vastness of her journey, she breaks things up into a series of milestones, checking off one metric at a time and enjoying the satisfaction of seeing her improvements add up. This helps prevent her getting bogged down in the present, keeping her future-oriented and incentivised to keep improving.

The ability to set a goal, stay on task and motivated, and develop consistency and healthy habits are all requirements to continued success. Kelly works on every one of these elements of permanent weight loss.

Conclusion

To summarise, Kelly Clarkson’s weight loss journey can be regarded as a testimony to how she, despite intense criticism and conspiratorial theories, has taken thoughtful control of her health and wellbeing and chose to do so with balance and without demonising certain types of food. Her journey has also shown how her pain could be understood and addressed at the emotional level. Her success may ultimately be a testament to how her intentional lifestyle choices, support from those around her and hard work, both physically and mentally, have led to a sustainable transformation that goes beyond body image. As she continues to empower herself through self-care, mindfulness and being her authentic self, it is no surprise that fans around the world cheer her on and celebrate every milestone of her ongoing fitness and wellbeing journey.