The Good American founder opened up on her podcast about emotional eating during her marriage to Lamar Odom and the turning point that changed her relationship with food and fitness.
Khloé Kardashian has long been open about the challenges she faced during and after her marriage to Lamar Odom, but a recent conversation on her podcast shed new light on just how deeply that chapter of her life reshaped her approach to health and well-being.
During the March 18 episode of her podcast, Khloé in Wonder Land, the Good American founder, 41, responded to a listener who described feeling rejected after a string of disappointing dates and admitted to struggling with anxiety about their appearance. What followed was one of Khloé’s most candid reflections on her own journey one that began long before she was known for her dedication to fitness.
The cycle she couldn’t break
Khloé described a pattern of emotional eating that started when she was younger, one that therapy eventually helped her address. She described turning to food as a response to any difficult emotion, eating to the point of physical discomfort and then feeling ashamed afterward. It was, by her own account, a relentless and exhausting cycle.
During her marriage to Odom, 46, that pattern intensified. The two wed in September 2009, just one month after meeting, and their relationship became one of the most publicly scrutinized in the Kardashian universe. Khloé first filed for divorce in December 2013, but proceedings stalled as the couple attempted to reconcile. When Odom was hospitalized following a near-fatal overdose in October 2015, she put the divorce on hold entirely. They ultimately finalized the split in December 2016.
It was that long and painful road to the end of their marriage that Khloé says became the unexpected turning point in her life.
From divorce to discipline
Rather than retreating further into old habits after the marriage ended, Khloé made a deliberate decision to channel her energy differently. She described becoming consumed in what she characterized as a constructive way with working out and taking better care of herself physically.
The motivation was not purely aesthetic. Years of a poor diet had taken a visible toll: she cited persistent skin problems and a long-standing discomfort with her own body, particularly in the context of being constantly compared to her sisters Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner. She wanted to feel at ease in her clothing and, eventually, in her own skin.
But she was also candid about how slow and uncomfortable that process was in the beginning. The first six months to a year of getting active did not produce dramatic visible results on the scale, and the insecurity did not disappear overnight. What kept her going, she explained, was mental rather than physical a growing sense of accomplishment from simply following through on what she had committed to do.
Building the habit before perfecting the routine
One of the more grounded pieces of advice Khloé shared on the episode was the order in which she approached her transformation. Rather than overhauling everything at once, she focused first on establishing a consistent workout habit before turning her attention to her diet. The rhythm of showing up, she suggested, had to come before the refinement of what she was eating.
That approach gradual, practical and rooted in self-awareness is consistent with how many health professionals recommend building sustainable lifestyle changes, and it resonated with her listener’s situation.
Mental health as the foundation
Khloé also spoke directly to the emotional dimension of the journey, emphasizing that physical results and mental health are deeply interconnected. She cited the clarity and mental strength she gained from regular exercise as among the most meaningful benefits of her lifestyle change not the numbers on a scale or the way she looked.
She also spoke to the value of therapy, noting that professional support had made a meaningful difference in her own life and encouraging the listener to seek it out if possible.
Since her divorce from Odom was finalized, Khloé had a years-long on-and-off relationship with NBA player Tristan Thompson which ended in 2021. She has not been publicly linked to anyone romantically since then.