Even Gwyneth Paltrow Wasn’t Immune To COVID Weight Gain

Paltrow in a sports bra in Iron Man 3

Celebrities may have access to fitness and nutrition trainers on the regular, but in many ways, celebrities during the pandemic year have had some of the same challenges as regular folks at home. In fact, Gwyneth Paltrow recently admitted she was moving around less than she might normally on a given work day. According to Paltrow, she recently revealed she has lost 11 pounds after gaining -- as she put it -- “a lot of weight” during quarantine.

In fact, the Goop founder and probably retired actress recently spoke out to note that she isn’t exactly getting any younger and she hasn’t been seeing the “snap back” she’d previously seen when she gained weight in the past. Of course, she doesn’t think quarantine life or her actual bout with COVID-19 helped in particular either. Speaking on The Art of Being Well podcast, she noted:

I’ve noticed over the past couple of years that my metabolism has slowed down. I know a lot of that is like perimenopause. I’m 48 years old and I know women tend to lose up to 30% of their metabolic speed once they enter this phase of life. So, I know some of it is that. I think maybe some of it is because I got COVID. My physician in New York was saying that that was affecting a lot of his patients’ metabolisms as well. But what I really noticed was the snap back that I used to have, like if I gained some weight I could quickly eat really well for a couple of days and exercise a lot and it would all be gone. That was not happening over the past year.

Honestly, COVID weight gain has been a very common topic of conversation for months now. Every time I think about gaining weight over COVID I think about that TikToker's "snacking" video that Barstool’s Big Cat and other celebrities have liked to share for the past year to describe life at home.

@indiagants

Looks like the former Marvel actress can relate, though honestly, Gwyneth Paltrow does not seem to be snacking on items like Cheetos or whatever. Her daughter in fact remarked about her health-related eating habits and her “Goop Glow super powder” in a video just a few weeks ago, though she was kind of trolling her mom and her mom’s famous vagina-oriented products, as well. In recent weeks, Paltrow has been working to get back into tip-top shape and trying varying ways to jumpstart her metabolism, including a bone broth diet that she swears by.

This [diet] has been incredible. I’ve lost 11 pounds… I gained a lot of weight over COVID. So, is that part of a lack of metabolic flexibility?

Weight has been at the center of a lot of what celebrities have been focused on in recent months. Like most of us, many of them were pushed out of their regular routines and into new ones, which resulted in certain celebrities (including Jim Carrey) talking about weight gain. Others used the time to start getting results with the weight, including Tiffany Haddish and Rebel Wilson, who both lost a significant amount of weight during the pandemic and have been candid about how they did it. For Gwyneth Paltrow, it seems as if things went one way and are now righting themselves the other way some months later.

A recent poll showed 42% of respondents gained weight during the pandemic. The average weight gain in the group was 29 pounds, according to the American Psychological Association. On the flip side, another 18% actually lost weight during the pandemic. So our responses to the changes have varied quite a bit. We’ll keep you updated if more celebrities share their own pandemic experiences. Meanwhile, please enjoy this thirst trap of Luke Evans, who also took the time during the pandemic to get ripped.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.