Kusha Kapila’s drastic weight loss has been the talk of the town! But behind her transformation, there’s a story that’s far from picture-perfect, contrary to what the internet believes. While social media was buzzing with reports, speculations, and praise, with some even tossing around Ozempic in the conversation, Kusha chose not to engage. That was, until now. The content creator turned actress recently opened up about her weight loss and all the chatter around it.
In a heartfelt and unfiltered video recently shared on her YouTube channel, Kusha broke the silence on her dramatic physical transformation. What the internet saw as an inspiring makeover, she revealed to be something much more complex – emotional, painful, and deeply personal.
“For the past month, I’ve been seeing so many transformation reels of myself that I started feeling like I wasn’t even in my body,” she confessed. “I had to look at myself from the outside and wonder—‘Is that really me?’” She described the surreal feeling of watching her body become a trending topic, saying it felt like “a constant out-of-body experience,” where “someone else was talking about my body more than I was.”
The irony hasn’t been lost on her. Once labeled “average,” she now finds herself called a “goddess of beauty” in headlines and Google alerts. “They would write things like ‘Average girl turned into a goddess of beauty.’”
Kusha’s journey with her body didn’t start recently. In the video, she remembered her first significant weight loss as a pre-teen. “I started gaining weight when I was 10,” she recalled. “People made me aware of it in a very harsh way—calling me names like ‘motu.’”
By the time she was preparing for her 10th-grade board exams, the weight gain had intensified, prompting concern from her mother. That concern led her to get a gym membership. “It was like an akhada,” she laughed. “I lost about 20-22 kilos during that time.” Though she was getting compliments for the physical change, the emotional toll was far heavier. “At 15 or 16, I was becoming beautiful, but I didn’t realise how deep my body image issues had gone and how long they would stay with me.”
There was a time when she let go of it all. Tired of measuring self-worth in kilos and compliments, Kusha decided to focus on what truly made her feel good. “Let it be,” she told herself. “I don’t care.” She leaned into her signature style of her humour, her impersonations, her sharp take on the world. “People liked me for my jokes, my antics, my impersonations,” she said. “So, my body didn’t feel like something I needed to work on.”
But in her early twenties, “I had gained 10 kilos more, and I was in an unhealthy state with no idea about what I wanted in life,” she shared. “I felt completely clueless.”
It was a late-night photo from a friend that became a turning point. “At 1:30 AM, he sent it to me and said, ‘Kusha, I think it’s time to work on yourself. He said it with love,” she clarified. “He was into fitness and could see I was in a bad mental space.”
That well-meaning push set her down a path that, while initially driven by intention, quickly spiraled. She rejoined the gym, but with an intense routine. “I was consuming only 800-900 calories a day, sometimes even less,” she admitted. Meals were basic and repetitive—homemade tomato curry and roti, twice a day. “Because of this extreme calorie deficit, I lost weight very quickly and dramatically. I didn’t gain muscle, it was just rapid weight loss.”
“People started saying things like, ‘Wow, Kusha, you look so amazing! What have you done?’” But behind all the praise, nobody knew what was going on. “I was starving,” she said. “I didn’t even realise why or for whom I was losing weight. Was it for health? Or just for the validation?”
Then her health began to falter. Out of nowhere, she developed a fever that wouldn’t subside. After a battery of tests and mounting confusion, one doctor finally suggested the possibility of tuberculosis. The diagnosis was abdominal TB, most likely triggered by her weakened immunity due to extreme dieting. “Women over 25-26 are more prone to TB. I was diagnosed because I had dropped my immunity so drastically,” she explained.
At 33 now, Kusha is finally reclaiming the narrative. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I wanted to lose weight for myself,” she said. “I told myself, ‘You are by yourself now. You’re responsible for everything that happens in your life. Take care of yourself, because no one else is coming.’”
In the internet world where rewards are quick and dramatic, Kusha Kapila’s story is a reminder that transformation isn’t just about what we see.
