Serena Williams has finally broken her silence on her weight loss journey. Just a few weeks ago, her sister, Venus Williams, who is also a tennis star, opened up about whether she would be open to cosmetic surgeries in the future. Now, the Grand Slam winner also reflected on her wellness, in particular her fitness journey.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Williams revealed that she has been using a GLP-1 medication to help manage her weight. “I feel great,” Serena told the outlet, sharing her feelings towards losing over 31 lbs.
“I feel really good and healthy. I feel light physically and light mentally,” she added. The former Tennis player told the outlet that everything changed after she gave birth to her first daughter, Alexis Olympia in 2017. She revealed that her postpartum body was completely different than she had before, which made it more difficult for her to lose weight in the traditional way.
“I never was able to get to the weight I needed to be no matter what I did, no matter how much I trained,” Serena Williams said. She continued, “It was crazy because I’d never been in a place like that in my life where I worked so hard, ate so healthy and could never get down to where I needed to be at.”
“I had never taken shortcuts in my career and always worked really hard. I know what it takes to be the best. So it was very frustrating to do all the same things and never be able to change that number on the scale or the way my body looked.”
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The 23-time Grand Slam champion further explained to PEOPLE that the same thing happened after she gave birth to her second daughter, Adira River, in August 2023. Williams explained that although in the first two weeks, she managed to lose a lot of weight, she hit a plateau after that. “I never lost another pound,” she recalls.
“I just thought, gosh, I don’t know if I would ever be able to get back to where I needed to get to.” This is when she decided to take a different route to get back to the lifestyle she had before leaving her tennis career.
“I did a lot of research on it. I was like, ‘is this a shortcut? What are the benefits? What are not the benefits?’ I really wanted to dive into it before I just did it,” Williams said. She consulted with Ro, a direct-to-patient healthcare company that offers GLP-1 treatment. For the unversed, GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. Brands like Ozempic and Mounjaro have now taken over the weight-loss industry, with many shifting to GLP-1 instead of traditional methods.
Serena revealed that after she stopped breastfeeding Adira in early 2024, she began the treatment and has managed to lose over 31 pounds since then. “I just can do more. I’m more active. My joints don’t hurt as much. I just feel like something as simple as just getting down is a lot easier for me. And I do it a lot faster,” the former tennis champion said, reflecting on her weight loss journey.
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However, this doesn’t mean she had left her athletic career at all. Serena is currently training for a marathon, and she often shares selfies from her “favorite place to be” – the gym. Since witnessing massive success with GLP-1, she plans on continuing taking it weekly as she needs it.
