Arnold Schwarzenegger opened up about his youngest son Christopher’s recent weight loss.
“I could never go and say to him, ‘You’re overweight.’ We just kept introducing healthy foods,” Schwarzenegger, 77, told The Times of London in a profile published on Saturday, June 14. “We introduced him always to the gym and all of that kind of stuff.”
He added, “And then, out of nowhere, he decided that he wanted to be lean. And now, he is. So that is, of course, fantastic, the self-discipline and the self-motivation. I always felt one day it will have to come from him — and it did.”
Christopher, 27, is the youngest child of Schwarzenegger and ex-wife Maria Shriver, who also share daughters Katherine, 35, and Christina, 33, and son Patrick, 31. (The legendary action star is also father to son Joseph, 27, whom he shares with Mildred “Patty” Baena.)
While Patrick and Joseph have both followed in their father’s acting footsteps, Christopher has taken a more low-key approach to the spotlight. While he often remains out of the public eye, he did recently open up about his wellness journey last month.
“It was a big process,” Christopher said during a panel at the Inaugural Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit. “I started in 2019 when I was living in Australia. I was on this big trip. I made it a big [deal] like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go out and do all this stuff, be in Australia,’ and I just saw how much my weight was prohibiting me from doing the everyday activities.”
According to Christopher, he “tried everything” to manage his weight through the years.
“I was doing meal delivery things in high school, and I remember feeling like a weirdo when I was bringing weird lunches to school,” he explained. “It’s not an overnight thing, but it took a lot of trial and error. And even still to this day … when you’re saying, ‘oh, before and after photos’ … I don’t feel like I’m an ‘after’ yet. I don’t feel like I’m at the point.”
Christopher eventually dropped 30 pounds after giving up bread for Lent in 2024.
“I was like, ‘Well, if I’m giving up bread, I might as well just take the opportunity and I’m a good Catholic boy, so I’m not going to break it,’” he quipped. “And that was my one rule. I was like, ‘I’m not going to break Lent.’ And so, I lost 30 pounds just through that.”
