While the premise of Love Is Blind is based on the idea that two people can fall in love sight unseen, season 7 star Hannah Jiles’ looks have taken the internet by storm.
“It’s a lot [about] feeling better about myself and a little bit of revenge,” Hannah, 27, said with a laugh during an interview with Us Weekly when asked about the motivation for her post-show weight loss. “I think when you watch the show, I was already on a journey. I’ve always struggled with my weight, my entire life. Whether I was skinny or whether I was heavier, I just had problems. I like to eat. I like to binge eat. I don’t like working out. During COVID, I gained a lot of weight, like a lot of people did. I was just feeling sorry for myself and never did anything about it, essentially.”
At her heaviest, Hannah said she weighed 220 pounds. She subsequently attempted to start running and watching what she ate.
“I got down to 175 before the show. And I had gotten liposuction too, maybe, a year [or] a year and a half before the show on my lower abdomen, my back and my neck, thinking, ‘These are things that I don’t like, let’s change them,’” Hannah told Us. “And then after the show, I was just like, ‘OK, I do love myself, but I do think I could be fitter and healthier. I can be better and feel better.’”
Hannah started eating cleaner and realized that she turns to food when she experiences anxiety. “I eat to cope,” she explained. “After the show, I realized a lot of things. I got on anxiety medication, which I think really helped me. I don’t have as much anxiety, so I’m not anxiously eating.”
The latest season of the Netflix show started streaming in September.When Hannah started posting more current images on social media, fans assumed she was on Ozempic.
“I tried Ozempic in the spring. It was the generic version. I don’t know what it’s called, but I tried it for two weeks-ish,” she told Us. “And for me, unfortunately, it just made me too sick. I couldn’t do it. It made me nauseous and made me want to vomit. I couldn’t eat food. I was like, ‘I’d rather be heavier than do this.’ But I think it’s an amazing thing. And if it didn’t make me sick, I definitely would’ve taken it, but I just couldn’t.”
While she doesn’t love exercise — “I’ll go to Pilates every now and then. I have severe OCD, so I clean a lot, which is kind of like exercise,” she told Us — Hannah is “more cautious” about what she eats.
“It’s nothing crazy that I’ve done,” she said. “Also, I’m a lot happier. And I think that really helps.”
Hannah — who broke up with her LiB fiancé Nick Dorka before the scheduled weddings — said she now weighs 145 pounds.
“It’s mainly portion control,” she continued. “I didn’t really cut back on what I ate. I’ve done crash diets in the past. They don’t work for me. If I just eat what I normally eat [but] just eat a smaller portion, I’m OK. I try to eat protein. I don’t like cooking meat at home, it grosses me out, so I eat a lot of fish at home. It’s easier. I try to eat proteins and some greens. Thankfully, I’m not a picky eater. But then if I want french fries for dinner, then I’ll have french fries for dinner. I just balance it out.”
Hannah acknowledged that her relationship with the scale is complicated, so she set guard rails.
“Weighing yourself, I feel like is such a thing,” she said, noting that many women can relate to the “generational trauma” passed down from their parents and grandparents. “I think my mom said that for high graduation, her mom got her a scale. … “I weigh myself every two weeks. I don’t weigh myself any more than that. That’s just to keep track [and] to make sure I’m not going off the wagon.”
She continued: “To weigh yourself every day — there’s definitely times when I’ve done it and I have to remember like, ‘Hannah, it’s not about the number and the scale.’ But you do have to keep yourself in check, too.’”
Hannah added that when she filmed Love Is Blind, she hadn’t “gotten anything done” to her face. In June, however, she got lip filler, Botox in her forehead and hair extensions.
“I haven’t got anything crazy done, but I’m very open to it [and] about it,” she said. “When I watch people on TV, the Kardashians, for example, and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, these beauty standards — I could never.’ iI’s like, ‘Well they’ve got a lot of things done and that’s why.’ The weight loss changed my face a lot [too], but my lips wouldn’t look like this or I would have wrinkles on my forehead or my hair’s not this luscious. It’s fake stuff.”