Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick this week revealed how he took weight-loss drug Ozempic ‘for a short period of time’ in an effort to shed the pounds.
The former immigration minister, who is bidding to replace Rishi Sunak, lost four stone in 12 months after realising he was ‘overweight’.
Mr Jenrick said Ozempic had been ‘helpful’ but he ‘didn’t particularly enjoy it’ and he has since ‘lost weight in the normal way by eating less… doing some exercise’.
But he is not the only politician to have battled the bulge in recent years, with David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Tom Watson also having waged war on the scales.
Here’s how senior figures at Westminster have previously attempted to get fit for office:
David Cameron
The former prime minister, who made a dramatic return to frontline politics last year, found that polls are not the only numbers politicians have to watch carefully.
The image-conscious peer was said to have been forced into action due to the number of diplomatic food functions he attended while foreign secretary.
When in charge of the Foreign Office, Mr Cameron was reported to be trying to get through the day with just a porridge and fruit breakfast, an apple and plenty of black coffee.
It was not the first time he had tackled the weighty issue of how to stay in shape.
Prior to the 2015 general election, the then Tory leader gave up bread and started running every other day in what he described as a ‘great patriotic struggle’ with his waistline.
David Cameron was pictured on the beach at Polzeath, Cornwall, during a family holiday in August 2013
Lord Cameron pictured while foreign secretary in April this year – a role that was said to have forced him into fresh action to watch his weight
Lord Cameron pictured running in St James’s Park, London, in January this year
Nigel Lawson
Margaret Thatcher’s former chancellor was probably the first high-profile politician to lose weight, and was so successful he published a book about it.
After quitting frontline politics in the late 1980s, the five-foot nine-inch Tory decided that the only growth he liked was economic.
He slimmed from 17 stone to 12 stone in a matter of months, resulting in better health and the ‘Nigel Lawson Diet Book’ – which came out two years before the first cook book by his daughter, Nigella.
And he managed to keep the weight off into his old age.
In keeping with his Thatcherite principles, he scoffed at the idea of government intervention to help the fat to lose weight.
He once told the House of Lords: ‘I speak from personal experience. The problem of obesity is simply a matter of eating less and drinking less and that is 100 per cent a matter of willpower.
‘It is not a matter of giving more money to local authorities, much as I understand their desire to have that.’
Nigel Lawson, then Chancellor, pictured at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool in 1985
Lord Lawson pictured in October 2008
Tom Watson
Labour’s former deputy leader shed an impressive six stone in just nine months. But at a huge cost – he had to drink coffee with butter in it.
He revealed he reversed his Type 2 diabetes and lost seven stone after going on the Keto diet.
Lord Watson said he went on the drastic weight loss regime after his weight soared to 22 stone.
He said he feared that he would die young and leave his two young children without a father unless he made a radical change to his lifestyle.
So he ditched the beer and curries he had survived on while working in Westminster and adopted the brutal regime involves shunning sugar, cutting out carbs and exercising.
One part of Lord Watson’s regime was ‘bulletproof coffee’, made using butter. The saturated fats are said to prevent you getting hungry during the day.
He said that the weight loss had been a ‘transformational experience’ and had ‘lifted a brain fog that I didn’t know was there’.
‘I feel like my mental acuity has improved, almost like my IQ has improved. I feel much sharper,’ he added.
It was a transformation he required as he tried to keep Labour on a even keel under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
He quit the House of Commons in 2019 and later became a life peer.
Labour’s former deputy leader Tom Watson, pictured in June 2013, shed an impressive six stone in just nine months
Lord Watson, pictured at Glastonbury festival in 2019, said he feared he would die young and leave his two young children without a father unless he made a radical change to his lifestyle
Nicholas Soames
Like his famous grandfather Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames cut a larger than life figure in the Commons.
Britain’s war time leader was famous for his prodigious appetite for food and booze and Sir Nicholas appeared to have followed in his illustrious ancestor’s footsteps, with the former minister for food once weighing in at 20 stone.
But he surprised Westminster in 2016 when he displayed a much reduced figure contained within his trademark double-breasted suits.
He lost the weight in the space of a year, leading to some claims that he had undergone gastric band surgery.
But the then Conservative MP for Mid Sussex – now a peer – was said to have lost weight through ‘restraint and abstinence’.
According to Bruce Anderson, of the Spectator magazine, his tremendous weight loss was simply down to eating less.
Like his famous grandfather Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames (pictured in 2013) cut a larger than life figure in the House of Commons
Sir Nicholas, pictured in January this year, surprised Westminster when he displayed a much reduced figure contained within his trademark double-breasted suits
Boris Johnson
The former prime minister and current Daily Mail columnist has spoken publicly about his weight going up and down.
He weighed in at 16.5st in 2018, while he was foreign secretary, but overhauled his lifestyle when he started dating future wife Carrie.
In January 2019, Mr Johnson revealed he had lost 12lbs by quitting alcohol and ‘late-night binges of chorizo and cheese’, with Twitter users saying it was a ‘loved up diet’.
By March, he looked even slimmer when he made headlines with his neat haircut and trim appearance.
But fast-forward a year and Mr Johnson was once again struggling with his weight.
He famously admitted ‘I was too fat’ after he was taken into intensive care when he was hospitalised with Covid-19 in April 2020.
Boris Johnson, pictured when foreign secretary in 2017, has spoken publicly about his weight going up and down.
The former PM, pictured last year, quit alcohol and ‘late-night binges of chorizo and cheese’
Shaken by the experience, the then PM embarked on a fitness and healthy eating regime, backed by Carrie, and was regularly photographed running in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, having been given permission by the late Queen.
He claimed to have lost a stone in the summer of 2020 and his physique looked trim as a result of his lockdown fitness regime.
By March 2021, he was nearly two stone lighter than he was when he contracted Covid after cutting down on carbs, chocolate and cheese.
In June last year he used his Mail column to reveal he had used the weight-loss drug Ozempic, with mixed results.
He wrote: ‘For weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked. Effortlessly, I pushed aside the puddings and the second helpings. Wasn’t it amazing, I said to myself, how little food you really need.
‘I must have been losing four or five pounds a week — maybe more — when all at once it started to go wrong. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was something to do with constantly flying around the world, and changing time zones, but I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill.
‘One minute I would be fine, and the next minute I would be talking to Ralph on the big white phone; and I am afraid that I decided that I couldn’t go on.
‘For now I am back to exercise and willpower, but I look at my colleagues — leaner but not hungrier — and I hope that if science can do it for them, maybe one day it can help me, and everyone else.’
Robert Jenrick
The current Tory leadership contender revealed how he took weight-loss drug Ozempic ‘for a short period of time’ in a bid to shed the pounds.
The former immigration minister, who is bidding to replace Rishi Sunak , lost four stone in 12 months after realising he was ‘overweight’.
Mr Jenrick said Ozempic had been ‘helpful’ but he ‘didn’t particularly enjoy it’ and he has since ‘lost weight in the normal way by eating less… doing some exercise’.
Ozempic was designed to treat type 2 diabetes but has gained attention as a weight-loss drug among a number of celebrities.
These include Rebel Wilson, Sharon Osbourne, Stephen Fry and Elon Musk.
But there have been warnings of serious side effects to the drug, as well as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.
Speaking to Politico about his own use of Ozempic, Mr Jenrick said: ‘To be honest, I was overweight.
‘I took Ozempic for a short period of time, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it was helpful.
‘Since then I’ve just lost weight in the normal way by eating less, eating more healthily, doing some exercise – going to the gym, going running.
‘I’ve lost four stone in 12 months.’
The website reported that Mr Jenrick took Ozempic for six weeks in the autumn of last year.
Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick, pictured at the beginning of this month, revealed how he took weight-loss drug Ozempic ‘for a short period of time’
The former immigration minister, pictured in July last year, lost four stone in 12 months after realising he was ‘overweight’
