Lifestyle Health Could You Be Next? Oprah Surprises WW Members with Video Calls to Say 'Congratulations!' The media mogul has dropped 42 lbs. herself on the weight loss program By Julie Mazziotta Julie Mazziotta Twitter Julie Mazziotta is the Sports Editor at PEOPLE, covering everything from the NFL to tennis to Simone Biles and Tom Brady. She was previously an Associate Editor for the Health vertical for six years, and prior to joining PEOPLE worked at Health Magazine. When not covering professional athletes, Julie spends her time as a (very) amateur athlete, training for marathons, long bike trips and hikes. People Editorial Guidelines Published on March 28, 2019 09:00 AM Share Tweet Pin Email If you’re on WW, be ready the next time you get a random FaceTime call — it could be Oprah on the line. The media mogul and WW (formerly Weight Watchers) spokesperson surprised a handful of members to give them a hearty “Congratulations!” “I’m getting ready to make some congratulatory calls to the people who are doing so well on the WW program,” Winfrey, 65, says in this behind-the-scenes video shared exclusively with PEOPLE. “Is this for real?” asks the first recipient, Eric Gonzales, who spoke to PEOPLE in August about his 168-lb. weight loss, which Winfrey calls “remarkable.” Gonzales goes on to share his story with Winfrey. “I was going through some tough times, and I decided to step back from my job because family is everything to me,” he says. “So I thought that I would have to take a break from Weight Watchers for a while for financial reasons, and this community just stepped forward, they pooled together their money and covered my membership for about six months. That was just more motivation for me to go harder and stronger.” Winfrey also spoke with a dad who joined WW after his 5-year-old daughter told him, “Daddy, your body isn’t very straight. It’s like, round,” to laughs from Oprah. And another woman commiserated with Winfrey she had “tried many, many things over my lifetime to try and get this weight to come off,” before figuring it out with WW. “You’re talking to the choir,” Winfrey, who has lost 42 lbs. on the program, agreed. The Wrinkle in Time star purchased a 10 percent stake in the company in 2015, and finally found success after years of yo-yo dieting. She marveled at her ability to maintain that 42-lb. weight loss last year. “Usually every Christmas [I’m] up eight to 12 lbs.,” she told PEOPLE in Feb. 2018. “So to be able to gain nothing during Christmas and watch people eat cronuts in front of me, I consider that a victory for someone who has been an emotional eater and struggled with up-and-down weight loss my whole life.” Winfrey said that she’s happy with her body now. “If I didn’t lose another pound, I still feel really fantastic,” she said. “I’m not trying to be skinny, not trying for a size. I’m just trying to be as healthy as my body wants to be.”