Change is in the air for Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager! Jenna, who turned 38 on Monday, and the newly engaged Hoda are in the midst of doing an intermittent fast to maintain a healthy lifestyle and kicked off their efforts last week by weighing themselves on live TV — a move that they embraced.
"We were both like, 'So what?' Let's do it," Hoda said. "We didn't debate it for one second."
"No, we didn't think about it," Jenna added.
"And I think that's kind of just the way the whole show is," Hoda continued. "It's almost like this is just us."
Last Monday when the fourth hour co-hosts stepped onto the scales, Hoda weighed 158 pounds, and Jenna weighed 171 pounds.
For Jenna, getting on a scale brought back memories.
“I, for a second, was transported to when I was like a chubby little girl and found a scale in my mom’s room and weighed myself. And, I, for a moment, was stuck there,” she said.
Jenna, now a mother of three, also said she hasn’t weighed herself since college, nearly 20 years ago, and was surprised at what she saw.
“That feeling of being reduced to a number is something I didn’t really like,” Jenna said.
Hoda is also doing her best to keep everything in perspective, noting she is healthy.
"Look, we feel grateful. Don't get us wrong. We're healthy, my God no one knows better how much that matters," she said. "There’s something about standing on the scale and watching the number, like, not stop. I was like, ‘Wait, I don’t remember this number.'"
“It’s not about the way we look," Jenna added. "It really was about the way we feel.”
Jenna then told a story about how she was always asked to jump on "the blob" float at summer camp growing up since she was heavier and made the kids on the other end of it fly higher.
She also said her parents were taken aback that she weighed herself on live television.
“My mom and dad were like, ‘Jenna, why’d you do that?’ And I was like, ‘Why are you saying that?’ and I think ‘cause they saw that little 10-year-old girl who, you know, felt sad sometimes,” Jenna said.
Hoda, who is a mom to girls Haley and Hope, also wrestled with her weight growing up.
“I remembered wondering like, ‘I wonder why guys aren’t asking me out,’" she said. "Like, I knew I was bigger than the other kids. I was the bottom of the pyramid girl. I was the get in the back girl. But I do think when you have to go through things like that as a younger kid, what’s weird is your childhood may have been tough in places, but it makes your adulthood so much easier.”
Jenna also senses an obligation to others now that she and Hoda are on TV together.
“Being in front of other girls and women, I don’t want anybody to feel less than or not enough,” she said.
The duo would love it if their decision to get on the scale resonates with others.
“I hope it just means that people don’t feel as alone,” Jenna said.
“It taught us a little lesson,” Hoda said. “I do think we’re doing this because we want to feel better. We want to feel better for our girls. We want to feel happier.”
“We want to teach our girls that they’re so much more than the way we look,” Jenna added.