- After experiencing dramatic weight loss due to a breakup and endometriosis, Lena Dunham just revealed she uses a food diary to maintain a healthy weight.
- She opened up to Elle UK about how her relationship with food has evolved over the years.
- The Girls creator also discussed her addiction to prescription drugs, which she has gone to rehab for.
Lena Dunham is known for being body positive, and now, she's opening up about her recent weight loss and weight gain in a new interview with Elle UK via People. The Girls creator, 33, experienced dramatic weight loss after breaking up with longtime boyfriend Jack Antonoff and having a total hysterectomy, due to endometriosis, in 2018. Now, she's working to maintain a healthy weight by keeping a food diary.
“If I write down what I eat, I’ll have to hold myself accountable and accountable people don’t gain thirty pounds in a single month," she told the publication. "Yes, I am body positive, but I am also a young single woman working in Hollywood, and I can’t just pretend that weight is not a thing. It’s a thing."
The actress and writer further explained exactly how she lost a dramatic amount of weight after her split from Jack, the lead singer of indie pop band Bleachers.
"Sadness is the only thing that’s ever made me lose weight," she said. "Two years ago, during the last gasps of my six-year relationship, I lost weight. Not a little weight. Not the kind of weight where your bras feel kind of generous and you marvel at your subtle but oh-wow-it’s-definitely-there-now clavicle. No, it was a lot of weight."
At the end of their relationship, weight was falling off Lena "in double digits," and she wasn't happy about it. "As I explained to my closest friends, I experienced none of the heady triumph of the women showing off their formerly-huge jeans in a full page add for weight-loss pills," she said.
Part of Lena's weight loss was also due to an addiction to prescription drugs, which she went to rehab for. "I had also completed in-patient treatment, known to the public as rehab for trauma and prescription drug dependency or, as I like to call it, a five-star hotel where they take away your razors," she explained.
"It took a week, but as the drugs left my body and I made peace with the fact that I was here to heal, not just to cut my own bangs and weep (just kidding: you can’t cut your own bangs because they won’t give you scissors)," she continued. "I got real hungry, real fast. If it wasn’t nailed down, I ate it."
Now, Lena is sober, maintaining a healthy weight, and working on a new project in England.
Emily Shiffer has worked as a writer for over 10 years, covering everything from health and wellness to entertainment and celebrities. She previously was on staff at SUCCESS, Men's Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women's Health, Runner's World, PEOPLE, and more. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in magazine journalism at the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, surfing, and long walks on the beach with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.
