Fitness

Kyle Richards’s Weight Loss of 15 lbs: Diet, Exercise, Sobriety, Etc.

Published

2 years ago

October 14, 2024

Kyle Richards’s Weight Loss of 15 lbs: Diet, Exercise, Sobriety, Etc.

Kyle Richards, the RHOBH star, has been spreading fitness motivation through her social media handle for quite some time now. The actress has entered the fifth decade of her life but has kept herself in shape and looks ravishing, owing to her dedicated health and fitness routine. Recently, during the 13th season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she appeared on the show, looking all slim, making fans raise eyebrows and wonder if she is on weight loss pills. She cleared all the rumors and even shared all about her weight loss journey. Did Kyle too jump on the bandwagon of using Ozempic? Let’s find out below! Here are all the deets on Kyle Richards’s weight loss journey. But before we get a bit serious, let’s take a look at the actress’s professional trajectory.

Who Is Kyle Richards?

Born and brought up in California, Kyle Richards began her acting career with the 1974 series, Police Woman. Over the next 10 years, she appeared on various TV series, including Flying High, Fantasy Island, Carter Country, and Time Express. After working in various TV shows, she appeared as a main cast member on the reality show, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2010), and has been a recurring cast member for the last 13 seasons.

Kyle is not only a successful actor but also an established entrepreneur. The Halloween actress launched a clothing line in 2014 and even opened a luxury resort and loungewear boutique in 2021.

Talking about her personal life, Kyle Richards got married to Guraish Aldjufrie in 1988 but the couple later parted ways in 1992. In 1996, she tied the knot with Mauricio Umansky but the marriage didn’t last for a lifetime and the couple divorced in 2023.

Be it her personal life, health and wellness, or plastic surgery, Kyle Richards’s life has always been an open book. She ditched alcohol in July 2022 and embarked on a health and wellness journey, about which we have explained below in detail!

Kyle Richards Weight Loss Journey: When Did It Begin

In 2022, Kyle Richards underwent breast reduction surgery, after which she took a break from her regular workout routine. The actress then went on a vacation where she thoroughly enjoyed herself and indulged in pasta, wine, and cocktails. The result of this was that she couldn’t recognize herself by the end of the trip.

Moreover, the Vega$ star was not in a good mental space back then — she had just lost her best friend to suicide and was under stress. All this made the reality star gain weight and made her think carefully about her lifestyle choices. She said “no” to bad carbs and eliminated sugar, pasta, bread, and alcohol from her diet. Addedly, she also made a decision to work out on a daily basis, which had a huge impact on her weight. But what exactly did Kyle from The Housewives of Beverly Hills eat that helped her transform her body so beautifully? Let’s find out below!

Read More: Trisha Yearwood’s Weight Loss: How the Singer Transformed over the Years

Kyle Richards Diet Plan

Kyle Richards was at her heaviest, i.e. 132 pounds when she started her weight loss journey and she swore not to indulge in unhealthy food items and eat nutrient-rich foods, which helped her lose about 15 lbs. Here’s what the 56-year-old actress eats:

Breakfast: The Curfew star starts her day with a meal packed with a punch of protein. Typically, she consumes a protein shake with a banana or has a bowl of oatmeal with berries for breakfast. Both options are nutrient-dense and filling for the stomach, with the former being a healthy source of vitamins and proteins while the latter being rich with antioxidants.
Protein shakes are a good way to stay hydrated, boost satiety, and get a good dose of protein in a tasteful way. Oatmeal, on the other hand, is a popular meal among weight loss enthusiasts — and science, too, supports the benefits of this nutritious food. A study concludes that consuming oatmeal can help improve gut health, inhibit inflammation, and prevent obesity (1). When combined with berries, a great source of antioxidants, it makes for a nutrient-dense breakfast meal that not only aids weight loss but also satisfies the taste buds (2).

Lunch: Chicken or grilled fish on salad usually makes its way to Kyle’s lunch meal.

Diner: The mom of four likes to eat homemade food, especially at night, and consumes salmon, halibut, and chicken paillard combined with arugula and lemon for dinner.

Kyle Richards Diet Plan

Snacks: The American Woman producer doesn’t go astray when it comes to snacking habits — she likes to keep her snacks simple and healthy. Apples, peanut butter, raw nuts, and healthy popcorn are her all-time favorite snacks.

In a nutshell, her diet is all about protein, veggies, and fruits. Once in a while, she also indulges in carbs, cereal being her weakness! In an interview, she was asked if she was following the famous Keto diet, which she declined.

Kyle’s approach to diet is simple and sustainable — she adds plenty of veggies and fruits to her plate to get her daily dose of nutrients.

But it’s not just dietary restrictions that have helped her keep in shape, there’s more to her weight loss story than adding proteins to her meal, and that is a workout routine! Let’s find out how she stays fit and healthy with a workout regimen!

Kyle Richards Workout Routine

There was a time when Kyle used to focus on her fitness just to “lose weight.” Now, her approach toward working out has changed. She now indulges in a consistent exercise routine to stay fit, get mental clarity, and lead an active lifestyle.

In an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she revealed that a consistent fitness routine helped her navigate marital issues with her then-husband Mauricio Umansky, and other personal issues. She further stated that going through painful times in life can “change you as a person.”

For her, the tiff with her sister and separation from her husband started taking a toll on her health, which is why she resorted to exercising and she couldn’t feel happier about her decision. Below are a few workouts she regularly incorporates into her lifestyle:

Weight Training: Kyle has always lifted light weights, but recently she amped up her workout and started lifting heavy weights.

Running: The RHOBH star is a huge fan of running and can’t imagine her life without it. In an interview, she explained that she observes the best results with her body with running. Plus, she enjoys it thoroughly and “pushes” herself to see how much “faster” can she run. The reality TV star also confessed that she keeps changing her running shoes, as she believes “new shoes” make her “run faster.”

Yoga: She also practices hot yoga, a type of yoga that’s performed in a warm room to improve muscles and burn calories (3).

Read More: Unraveling the Benefits of Vinyasa Yoga for Mind, Body, And Spirit

Kyle Richards Keeps Changing Her Workout Routine

When it comes to exercising, boring is not in the dictionary of Kyle Richards. She keeps changing her workout routine to get the best of all types of fitness activities. Some days, she does Peloton, an ab-routine, other days she would lift weights. Running is something she indulges in regularly.

She once revealed that she keeps changing her workouts so that her body can’t get accustomed to any one particular type of fitness activity. She revealed working with her trainer to stay fit and keep changing her workout routine.

Even though her workout keeps changing, Kyle’s dedication toward her fitness and weight loss goals remains constant — she is on the move even when she is away from home. Ever since she has made a commitment to be on the run always, she has managed to keep that promise to herself! She revealed that even if she has to “take a 5 a.m. flight” she would skip the workout at house, but make sure to work on her “abs in the hotel room.” Further, she added that in case something comes up and she misses working out that day, she makes up for it another day, but there is a rare chance of that happening.

Kyle Richards Also Quit Alcohol to Improve Her Well-being

Not everyone has the courage to quit alcohol, as it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to do so. But Kyle made it happen with her resoluteness — she gave up alcohol in July 2022 and can’t see herself drinking again. She revealed that alcohol started affecting the way she feels. She would wake up feeling like she was “dragging” after two glasses of wine and felt “tired,” as if she was having “In-N-Out” moment, which is why she decided to quit drinking alcohol.

Even though, she was never a “big drinker,” she started seeing “results pretty fast” once she gave up alcohol. She feels proud of her decision and recently shared via Instagram post that she feels much better “physically and mentally” after quitting alcohol.

Kyle Richards Stays Hydrated

Hydration is the key to getting beautiful skin and a healthy body, and Kyle Richards swears by this. As she doesn’t drink sodas, alcohol, or sugary beverages, she keeps herself hydrated by drinking plenty of water throughout the day. But since drinking plain water could be boring, she refreshes herself by adding lemon juice to water, which has great effects on her skin.

Water truly is the elixir of life — staying hydrated helps flush the toxins out of the body, reduces hunger pangs, improves skin health, and boosts energy levels (4), (5).

Kyle Richards Doesn’t Want to Lose Any More Weight

Kyle Richards now feels confident in her body and is focusing on being active to stay healthy rather than losing weight. She stated that now that her weight is “settled at 117 pounds,” she doesn’t want to “lose any more weight.”

She uses a wellness app to track her health and fitness goals and her progress and motivates people to start a fitness and health journey, no matter what their age is.

Kyle Richards Before And After Weight Loss Images

Before:

After:

By making healthy eating and workout habits a consistent habit, Kyle Richards dropped 5 lbs successfully. The actress makes it a point to eat proteins and work out religiously and that has helped her defy the signs of aging even at the age of 55. She proves that age is just a number and one can begin a health and wellness journey at any point in their lives and keep themselves happy and hearty. Kyle Richards’s weight loss journey is a reminder that good things take time and with persistent efforts, one can easily be in good and sound health.

Sources:

1. A Review of Health-Beneficial Properties of Oats

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8625765/

2.Recent Studies on Berry Bioactives and Their Health-Promoting Roles

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8747047/

3. Hot Yoga Leads to Greater Well-being: A Six-week Experience-sampling RCT in Healthy Adults

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10268545/

4. Water, Hydration and Health

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908954/

5. Narrative Review of Hydration and Selected Health Outcomes in the General Population

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356561/

Fitness

How Jackass Star Chris Pontius’ Simple ‘1-Rep’ Rule Keeps Him Jacked at 51 – and Why it’s so Effective

Published

4 hours ago

July 6, 2026

Press Room

How Jackass Star Chris Pontius’ Simple ‘1-Rep’ Rule Keeps Him Jacked at 51 – and Why it’s so Effective

You might know Chris Pontius as ‘Party Boy’ from the Jackass films and TV series that defined the early 2000s. Now 51, he’s back on our screens for Jackass: Best and Last, the fifth and final instalment in the franchise. Away from the stunts, though, Pontius has also become an unlikely source of practical fitness advice, regularly sharing workouts from his home gym.

In a recent Instagram Reel, he shared: ‘I have a very simple exercise tip for people who are having trouble getting motivated to exercise. Just lift the weight one time, do one rep, one push-up, whatever it is, and once you’ve started you kind of go, “Well, I might as well just keep going”.’

‘So try it, it’s worked for me every time and it’ll probably work for you,’ he says.

The advice is grounded in behavioural science. By taking one small step towards your workout, you’re more likely to overcome the initial mental resistance because the task feels more achievable. Once you’ve started, it’s far easier to build momentum and complete the rest of your session.

Our Fitness Director Explains Why This Method Works

‘There’s a bit of science behind this, too,’ says Andrew Tracey. ‘Behaviour-change researchers have looked at “all-or-nothing thinking” around exercise – basically, the idea that if you can’t do the full session, exactly as planned, you may as well sack it off completely. Giving yourself permission to do the smallest possible version of the workout is a way around that.

‘Tell yourself you’re only doing the warm-up. Or one round. Or five minutes. You’re allowed to stop there. But often, once you’ve started, you realise the hard part wasn’t the workout itself. It was getting going. Research also shows that the way a workout feels can affect whether you come back for more. So a small win that feels doable is almost always better than the perfect session you never start. So while the “minimum dose” might feel like a cop-out, it could actually be a way in.’

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

Fitness

“Forget living longer, exercise can make life easier right now”—a 72-year-old fitness influencer and marathon runner shares two accessible ways to start moving

Published

14 hours ago

July 5, 2026

Press Room

“Forget living longer, exercise can make life easier right now”—a 72-year-old fitness influencer and marathon runner shares two accessible ways to start moving

Retirement is often a time when people slow down, but in Christine Hobson’s case, she’s speeding up. When her daughter persuaded her to join a running club so she wouldn’t get bored, she had no idea she’d get the fitness bug and run 125 marathons in total, visiting all seven continents.

And the 72-year-old former teacher has plans to run the North Pole marathon in 2027.

Hobson, who believes that exercise is the best anti-aging hack, tells Fit&Well: “I think what makes you old is not doing anything and just being sedentary, sitting around watching TV all the time. I really believe the less you move, the less you’re able to move, so when I retired at almost 61, I decided that my new job was to get fit.

1. Perform the sit-to-stand exercise

Hobson says an essential exercise to incorporate into your day is the sit-to-stand—a move that involves sitting and standing up from a chair without using your hands.

To build your strength, Hobson suggests doing the sit-to-stand 10 times each time you walk past a chair in your house. Once you’ve got the technique, she recommends trying it from a lower chair or couch to make it more challenging.

“The sit-to-stand is critical,” says Hobson. “If you can do that, that’s the thing that’s going to keep you independent in your own home. Because if you live alone and you can’t get up, then how are you going to look after yourself independently? The next thing will be that you can’t get out of your bed, and then you’re in trouble.”

Hobson began with the sit-to-stand exercise, and has progressed to squat with a 35kg barbell and deadlift 75kg.

Many people think motivation will just appear, says Hobson, but she says: “There’s no such thing as motivation really. It’s discipline. It’s building a habit. You’ve got to book your workouts in like a meeting at work, which is what I did when I retired. I prioritized fitness like a job.

“I also have my workout clothes ready to make sure I exercise—even if I’m planning to do it later in the day. I get dressed so I can’t talk myself out of it.”

2. Walk a mile a day

If you’re totally new to exercise, or returning after a long break, Hobson says walking is an excellent place to start.

“We are a species that is supposed to move, and even a short 20-minute walk will support your heart, your ability to control your blood sugar levels, and help you mentally and physically,” she says.

Her trick is to listen to audiobooks while she walks to encourage her to go further.

“This is how I started before I ran my first marathon,” she says. “I walked a mile a day and I really forced myself to do it come rain or shine. After about five or six weeks I found that I wanted to go more.

“And one of the things that helped was listening to audiobooks. If I got home and I had got to an exciting bit in the book I would have to go back out again to hear the next chapter so it would make me walk a bit further.”

Hobson describes herself as a run-walker, saying she has completed all her marathons that way. “I started exercising for something to do when I retired. Now I do it because it makes life easier.”

Fitness

Why 21-15-9 Might be the Smartest Workout Format in Fitness – and How to Use it to Drive Muscle Growth

Published

1 day ago

July 5, 2026

Press Room

Why 21-15-9 Might be the Smartest Workout Format in Fitness – and How to Use it to Drive Muscle Growth

CrossFit means a lot of things to a lot of people – because it’s made up of a lot of things.

Since the rise of the fitness giant, countless brands, events and training methods have sprung up around it – not claiming to be CrossFit, but looking suspiciously CrossFit-esque.

There are, however, a handful of things that are uniquely CrossFit: the ‘Girls’ benchmark workouts. The Hero WODs and, of course, its signature rep schemes.

Chief among them is ’21-15-9′.

The 21-15-9 rep scheme may just be the single most CrossFit thing in existence. But what exactly is it? Where did it come from? And why might it actually be better at building muscle in a hurry than its conditioning roots would have you believe?

Let’s have a look.

What Is 21-15-9?

If you’ve never encountered it before, the format couldn’t be simpler. Choose two exercises (occasionally more) and perform 21 reps of each, then 15 reps of each, then nine reps of each, completing the entire workout as quickly as possible – with good form.

Probably the best-known example is ‘Fran’: 21 thrusters and pull-ups, followed by 15 of each, then nine. On paper it doesn’t look especially intimidating. In practice, it’s one of the most feared benchmark workouts in fitness.

Where Did it Come From?

Unlike many modern training methods, 21-15-9 didn’t come out of a study. It came from the gym floor.

CrossFit founder Greg Glassman has explained that the format emerged through years of coaching and experimentation in the 1990s. Rather than chasing a perfect sets-and-reps prescription, he was looking for a workout that allowed athletes to maintain a high power output from start to finish.

The thinking is surprisingly elegant. You begin with 21 reps while fresh. By the time you reach the set of 15, your ability to produce force has already fallen. By the final nine, you’re significantly more fatigued – but the workload has dropped by almost the same amount.

Instead of grinding through increasingly miserable sets of the same length, the workout ‘meets you where you are’, reducing the work required as your capacity declines. The result is a workout that encourages you to keep moving instead of standing around trying to recover.

The numbers themselves are also remarkably practical. Forty-five total reps per movement provides plenty of training volume without turning the session into an endurance slog, while every set divides neatly into thirds if you need to break it up.

(Although I’ve got to be honest, I’m a 20-15-10-5 man myself, just for the sake of round numbers.)

Why Does it Work So Well?

Although there isn’t research showing that 21-15-9 is somehow the magic formula, there are obvious reasons why it consistently produces brutally effective workouts.

Descending reps help maintain intensity. As fatigue accumulates, reducing the target allows movement quality, bar speed and overall work rate to stay higher than they would if you simply repeated the same number of reps over and over.

It also tends to land in a physiological sweet spot. Most 21-15-9 workouts take between three and eight minutes, depending on the movements and the athlete. That’s long enough to create a serious cardiovascular challenge while still requiring meaningful force production throughout. You’re taxing your anaerobic systems hard while relying on your aerobic system to help you recover just enough to keep going.

Finally, there’s the psychological trick. The hardest-looking part comes first. Once you’ve survived the opening 21, every remaining round appears more manageable. ‘Only 15 left.’ Then, ‘Just nine.’ In reality, you’re becoming more fatigued with every rep, but the shrinking target keeps you attacking the workout instead of pacing too conservatively.

Why it Might be Surprisingly Good for Building Muscle

Perhaps the biggest misconception about 21-15-9 is that it’s ‘just cardio with weights’.

Choose the right load and something interesting happens. Very few athletes complete every round unbroken. Instead, the workout naturally evolves into a series of short, broken sets separated by only a few seconds of rest.

Your 21 might become 11-5-5. Your 15 becomes 8-4-3. Your final nine might stay unbroken – or become 5-4.

In effect, you’ve accidentally turned the workout into a form of rest-pause training.

Those brief pauses allow just enough recovery to squeeze out more high-quality repetitions before fatigue catches up again. By the latter stages of each mini-set, you’re repeatedly working very close to failure, recruiting the high-threshold motor units with the greatest potential for muscle growth.

It’s a similar principle to rest-pause training, myo-reps and cluster sets: all methods used to accumulate hypertrophy-friendly volume while keeping the load relatively heavy and the rest periods brutally short.

You’re basically speed-running a large number of hard, growth-stimulating reps in a very small window of time. Could this help explain why elite CrossFit athletes often carry an impressive amount of muscle despite spending relatively little time performing traditional bodybuilding splits?

It’s certainly plausible, although the ‘elite’ part often selects for athletes with the greatest muscle-building potential.

Much of their training isn’t simply conditioning. It’s high-density resistance training performed under accumulating fatigue, with only fleeting recovery between efforts. In other words, they’re often doing something bodybuilders have deliberately programmed for decades: packing a lot of hard work into a very short period of time.

That’s not to say 21-15-9 is superior to a well-designed hypertrophy programme. If your sole goal is building muscle, there are more efficient ways to do it.

But if you’re looking for a workout that develops fitness, tests your mettle and still provides a meaningful stimulus for strength and size, it’s easy to see why this deceptively simple rep scheme has remained one of CrossFit’s defining fingerprints for more than 20 years.

Best Bodyweight 21-15-9 Workout: ‘JT’

If you’re looking for an interesting twist on the 21-15-9 format, look no further than Hero WOD ‘JT’, which concentrates the muscle-building potential of the format into a brutal upper-body workout.

Created in honour of Petty Officer 1st Class Jeff Taylor, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2006, the workout strips away barbells altogether and relies solely on three bodyweight movements:

21-15-9 reps of:

Don’t let the lack of equipment fool you. The volume – 45 reps of each movement, 135 reps in total – combined with the descending rep scheme makes this a brutal upper-body test, hammering the shoulders, chest and triceps while demanding serious muscular endurance.

Better still, it perfectly demonstrates one of the biggest strengths of 21-15-9. As fatigue mounts and the sets naturally fragment, the workout begins to resemble one giant rest-pause set, allowing you to accumulate a huge number of hard, near-failure reps in less than 10 minutes.

If your goal is building an impressive upper body while developing serious work capacity, there are few bodyweight workouts that deliver quite so much bang for your buck, making ‘JT’ one of my personal favourites.

fitness magazine cover featuring a muscular man with kettlebells

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.