Kirstie Alley Was A Body Positivity Hero With Total Weight Loss Journey Honesty

Kirstie Alley's death at 71 shocked her friends and family, given that she struggled with colon cancer for a short while before she passed. Tributes from co-stars and friends have flooded social media, as fans remember her for her various roles, from "Star Trek II", to "Cheers" to her movie with John Travolta, "Look Who's Talking."

But what many remember her for, is her wildly fluctuating weight and how she treated weight loss as an athlete, and how she always remained upfront about the same. Here's remembering Kirstie Alley...

Alley's weight ballooned around her '50s, with what she called "men's problems" and the media latched onto it, in not-so-many pleasant ways.

In fact, in November 2004, Alley opened up to Oprah about her weight struggles and how she'd become a target for the paparazzi. Since her private battle with pounds had become public, Alley decided to be an open book about it. She told Oprah, "Honestly, I didn't know how fat I was. Thanks to the tabloids I went, 'Damn, girl, you're fat!'"

She admitted that at her heaviest, she weighed 230 pounds and when the media splashed her looking fat on the front pages, she decided to do something about it. Alley quit smoking and joined the Jenny Craig weight loss program, becoming a spokesperson for them as a week. She continued to keep Oprah updated and then finally, in 2006, she made the big reveal, appearing in a bikini on Oprah, and looking curvy but a lot thinner than before.

Here's that video:

On Monday night, Alley's family took to Instagram to inform friends and family that the actress had passed, writing, "We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered. She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead."

While she stuck with Jenny Craig for a long time, in 2011 when Alley came "Dancing With the Stars", she created her weight loss program, Organic Liaison. She and dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy finished second on that season of "DWTS," and Alley credited her weight loss at the time to the show and her program.

At the time, she wrote, "NO surgery, NO flippin lasers, NO barfing, NO starving...Jeez...my products, organic food, dance."

Alley alleged that she lost 100 pounds with her own weight loss system but in 2012 she was sued for false advertisement. She settled a class-action lawsuit by removing the "proven product" labeling from the packaging.

Before this, she had also become an author, penning down her weight loss struggles in a book, "How To Lose Your Ass and Regain Your Life: Reluctant Confessions of a Big-Butted Star" in 2005. In it, she basically wrote about living life as an overweight star in a world obsessed with being thin,

Meanwhile, here's Jenny Craig's eulogy for Alley.

Alley was nothing if upfront about her weight as well as its ups and downs, and was more than happy to capitalize on the same, starring in the sitcom, "Fat Actress."

The show focused on a fictionalized version of Alley, a formerly skinny Hollywood starlet who has gained weight and goes on a weight loss journey. Most of the show's script and even one-liners came closely based on Alley's real-life experiences as an overweight Tinseltown star and her struggles with weight loss. The show also starred John Travolta, who has given a rather emotional eulogy for his friend and also starred his late wife, Kelly Preston.

Fans still remember her for role in "Fat Actress", and with good reason: