EXCLUSIVE: Octavia Spencer Shares Why Weight Loss Feels Important to Her Right Now
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When Octavia Spencer thinks about the future, she isn’t talking about reinvention or chasing the fountain of youth. She’s talking about how she wants to feel in her body as she gets older.
Spencer, 55, told LA Times Studios exclusively that what feels the most important to her right now is strength.
Losing weight has started to feel less optional, Spencer says as she moves through the next phase of her life. “I think there’s the hubris of youth that you think that you’re always going to feel great,” she said, “that you’re always going to be able to take off 10 pounds when you want to…” But now, she shared, it isn’t about vanity or a quick reset. It’s about what her body is asking for. “These days now that I realize I really need to get my weight down because my joints ache,” she said, “or get my weight down because I need to be stronger.”
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Spencer is describing a shift that many people recognize the moment midlife stops feeling theoretical. Recovery starts to take longer. Strength becomes more of a daily need. Wellness routines become rooted in what it takes to actually feel steady and capable in everyday life.
“I’m 55 and entering the next phase of my life now when I realize that this is the middle of my life,” she said. “I want the next phase of my life to be informed, strong, healthy.” That focus on prevention is what brought Spencer together with Sofía Vergara for the “Detect the SOS” mission, a public health initiative supported by patients, professional organizations, and kidney and heart advocacy groups, with a new commercial airing Feb. 8 during the big game encouraging Americans living with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure to prioritize uACR urine screening, a test that can help detect early signs of kidney damage and hidden heart risk.
Sofía Vergara and Octavia Spencer open up about menopause, aging, and why sleep becomes harder after 50 — and how listening to your body earlier can change everything.
For Spencer, the campaign reflects how recently she began paying closer attention to her own health. “I actually haven’t listened to my body until recently,” she said, laughing. “I think most people, we don’t go to the doctor until we feel sick. And I’m changing that.” Her diagnoses, she explained, didn’t arrive with obvious warning signs. “I suffer from type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, both of which I didn’t know that I had,” she said. “Those things did not manifest in a very loud way for me.” Only later did she fully understand what those underlying conditions could signal beneath the surface. “What I didn’t know is that people who have those underlying conditions are also at great risk for kidney damage,” she said, “which could lead to cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke.”
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Now, Spencer is approaching this stage of life with a different kind of awareness, one rooted not in panic but in attention. “I am now starting to maybe be more attuned to my body,” she said. In that context, weight loss is less about a number and more about feeling stronger in her body. It’s one piece of how she’s thinking about health now, and what it means to take care of herself heading into the years ahead.
Click here to learn more about their mission: Detect the SOS
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