Jennifer Hudson’s Career Defining Weight Loss Explained in New Book

There’s a bit of an old adage that it’s easier to lose weight as a kid for any number of reasons, because once baby fat becomes adult fat, it’s harder to take off.

So a story like Jennifer Hudson’s can be very inspiring to a lot of people who have struggled with their weight for their entire lives, as the American Idol winner hit it big before dropping tons of poundage and transforming her plus-sized body to a tiny size six. Hudson- who has gone on to star in Dreamgirls and win and Oscar- is nearly more famous for her weight-loss achievements than her professional ones, it seems sometimes. But the singer is coming out with a new book, I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down examining the issue further and explaining how her life changed when she achieved her massive slim-down.

Hudson appeared on the Today show to promote the tome and explain that for her, weight loss was only part of her self-improvement journey. And if you feel that losing weight will improve your life significantly, Hudson describes, there is a bit more to the issue- the singer says that balancing her image with her ideas about talent being more relevant was very difficult:

“Image is everything in Hollywood. Although for myself I always felt it should be talent, and it is talent… but there’s always that in the background saying, ‘Oh, image is everything,’ and image, image, image, image, but still being stubborn against that, saying ‘No, talent, talent, talent.’ At least in my book.”

The singer also said that while weight loss was a transformative experience for her, that being pregnant was really more of a defining moment for her body image. Hudson explains:

“Being pregnant, you’re invaded, you’re sharing your body and so you lose that control. That experience let me know that wow, this is my body and I can do what I want to do with it and it can be whatever I want it to be.”

Do you find Hudson’s weight loss inspiring, or do you think it is overshadowing her career and talents?

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