Mama June Shannon is down 300 pounds — and she’s kept it off despite giving up weight loss medication.
Mama June, 45, tells Us Weekly exclusively that she’s been off the injections since December but has maintained her weight between 194 and 197 pounds in the months since.
“Not judging anyone who’s on the weight loss shot because if you are then it’s fine, but I don’t take the weight loss shot anymore due to the fact that it is a stepping stone, but it’s not a fix-all, be-all,” she says while promoting season 7 of Mama June: Family Crisis. “You have to make it a lifestyle change. So I made the lifestyle changes, and I know I can move forward with the lifestyle changes.”
Mama June has been open about her weight loss journey, previously chronicling her extensive surgeries, including a gastric sleeve in 2015. Years after her operation, she gained back approximately 100 pounds and turned to semaglutide injections when her effort to shed the extra weight stalled.
She tells Us that she’s living proof that those who stop using “the shot” will not automatically gain the weight back.
It turns out her decision to get off semaglutide came by accident. Mama June realized she could stay healthy without the meds when she embarked on a 10-day road trip without them.
“I left my medication at home and realized in 10 days I could do without it,” she says. “I didn’t get back on it.”
That doesn’t mean Mama June has put her health concerns behind her. She underwent a “surprise” hysterectomy earlier this year and shares that she has other health problems that she’s not ready to disclose.
“I’m still dealing with health issues now,” she says. “We’re not releasing [it] to the public until we get all the answers.”
Thankfully, she has her daughter Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo, by her side. Now 19, Alana is studying to become a nurse.
“She’s been dumbing it down for us,” Mama June says. “She’s like, ‘No Mama, this is what you really have; this is what’s really going on.”
She then said to her daughter, “When we go to this other doctor when we get back, I need you to dumb it down some more.”
Mama June: Family Crisis premieres Friday, May 30, at 8 p.m. ET via WeTV, ALLBLK and AMC+.
