Ricki Lake

A lot of people might be familiar with actress Ricki Lake for playing the role of Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film, Hairspray. At age 19, her performance caught a lot of attention and led to her big break. Five years later, she became the youngest person at the time to have a talk show. It aired from 1993 to 2004 and became popular in many countries, particularly in the United Kingdom and Australia. She hosted another talk show from 2012 to 2013, which won a Daytime Emmy.

Lake has come a long way from her Hairspray years. In her debut, she weighed around 200 pounds and at her peak, she weighed a staggering 260 pounds. Since then, she managed to slim down considerably, with her weight in 2013 having gone down to 130 pounds — which was half her peak weight. She did this by intermittent fasting and doing exercise. Lake’s risky investment in herself had certainly paid off.