Rosie O'Donnell shows off massive weightloss on TV return

Actress-turned- TV personality Rosie O'Donnell debuted her slimmed down new look on her new show The View on Monday (15Sep14), revealing she has lost over 50 pounds (22.6 kilograms) since undergoing vertical gastric sleeve surgery last year (Jul13).

The A League of Their Own star, who once tipped the scales at 237 pounds (107.5 kilograms), started a new health kick after suffering a heart attack in 2012.

And, as she joined Whoopi Goldberg, Nicole Wallace and Rosie Perez for the new season of the long-running talk show on Monday, O'Donnell revealed she's still coming to terms with her weightloss.

She said, "I'm not used to it yet. I still buy the wrong-sized clothes... A lot of people who have never had weight issues their whole life would assume that losing weight and going from morbidly obese to being able to buy clothes off the rack would be only full of happiness and positivity, but that's not true. It's also full of anxiety and vulnerability.

"I'm glad it's going at the rate it is because any faster than this would throw me into a panic."

And the actress revealed she has come to realize why she always felt safe and secure overweight, adding, "Some (people) gain weight as a layer of protection - to keep people away from them. I never wanted someone to want to approach me in a sexual manner because of my physical body and because of child abuse issues.

"So I think they are all interwoven and they don't exist separately so they come up, and I'm having to put out fires and talk to my therapist and get through it and find a different way to cope with my anxiety and my feelings of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) rather than eating over them."

O'Donnell wasn't the only woman on the new The View line-up who has shed the pounds - returning co-host Goldberg also showed off a slimmer figure, revealing, "I've lost about 35 pounds. I'm using (chef) Rocco DiSpirito's diet book The Pound A Day Diet. And I feel good."