Vidya Balan has lost drastic weight this year through her diet and 'no exercise'. In a recent interview with Galatta India, the actor opened up about her body image after all the buzz around her recent weight loss. She also touched on growing up with constant judgment around her body and being a 'fat girl' and how she’s reached a point where she no longer cares. 

Vidya no not losing weight earlier

Vidya said, “You know, all my life, I have struggled to be thin. I have dieted and exercised like crazy, and sometimes, I would lose weight, and it would come back… and then, early this year, I met a nutritional group called Amura (Amura Health) in Chennai. They said, 'It is just inflammation; it is not fat'. So, they put me on a diet to get rid of the inflammation, elimination of inflammation it is called, and it worked beautifully for me and the weight went like that because they eliminated foods that were not suiting me. I have been a vegetarian all my life, (yet) I didn't know palak and doodhi (spinach and bottle gourd) don't suit me. We think all vegetables are good for us, but that is not the case. You have to figure out what's good for you as just because it is good for someone else, it may not be good for you.”

Vidya stopped working out to lose weight

She added the second thing she did was to stop working out like a 'beast'; in fact, she stopped working out at all. Vidya also explained that when she was younger, the media, and people in general, regularly brought up her weight, which led to her self-esteem being based on how fat she was.

Vidya said, "They (Amura) asked me to stop working out. You know everyone has been telling me 'Oh my God, you are your slimmest' and I have not worked out all year. This is the first year that I have not worked out. And I want to say judgment around the body is brutal. A lot of times, people put on weight for various reasons because our bodies express what we are going through emotionally also... even I would not have believed last year if I had been told 'Stop working out'. I used to be a beast in the gym. And I had people telling me, 'You must not be working out at all'. And now, people tell me, ‘So what are you doing?’ and I am like, 'No, I don't do anything'. I am just enjoying myself and I am feeling healthier than ever. I am not saying you should not exercise... but remember no two people are the same... we must respect our individuality."

Vidya also reflected on how she 'grew up with the label of being a fat girl'. The actor said she didn't want to grow up to be a 'fat woman', a 'big woman'. Vidya said that ‘fat’ almost 'seems like abuse today' but she chooses to constantly using the word 'fat' because 'there are thin people and there are fat people', and she 'does not think it is shameful in any way'. She said today people say fat in a way where 'it feels like you are fat-shaming someone'. But Vidya feels that you are 'just describing the body size' when you call someone fat, and all the judgment around the terms needs to go away.

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