When Star Jones Reynolds held a press conference this spring to announce she would be hosting a talk show on Court TV (soon to be truTV), her appearance drew gasps. Everyone knew she’d been losing weight over the past several years, but with stylish glasses, a fresh bob haircut and an even trimmer body, she hardly looked like the same person who had left The View a year earlier. She felt different, too. “I’m much more confident,” Star, 45, explained. Confident enough that just a few months later, she finally opened up about her stunning weight loss.

Fessing Up — at Last

At her heaviest, the onetime New York City assistant district attorney carried 307 lbs. on her 5-foot-5 frame. But it wasn’t just vanity that eventually drove her to drop 150 lbs. “I couldn’t breathe,” she explained in her 2006 book, Shine. “I couldn’t walk. Talking was difficult.” And so, in August 2003, she secretly underwent gastric bypass surgery.

For four years, Star dodged questions about her drastic change in shape. She was, she says, “scared of what other people would think. For some strange reason, I thought it would diminish who I was.” But, just recently, with the support of her banker husband of nearly three years, Al Reynolds, 37, plus two years of therapy, Star became convinced that going public with her surgery might help others. “In order to deal with morbid obesity, you have to do it with medical attention,” she now admits.

Surgery was just the first step in Star’s transformation. “I make a commitment to move in some way every day,” she says. “It’s about exercise and movement and not being sedentary and lazy.” Star’s attitude toward food has become healthier, too. “Make no mistake,” she says, “I still enjoy eating the same foods I used to, but now I have my appropriate portion down to a science. Six pieces of bacon does not work, OK? Two pieces of bacon — absolutely.”

Star, who had a breast lift and surgery to remove extra skin on her stomach, believes she has been “given a gift of a second chance.” She adds, “I can participate in life’s activities instead of being sidelined with aching joints or fatigue.”

New Look for a New Show

Star’s shorter hair, hip glasses and toned-down makeup are part of an image makeover, reflecting the TV personality’s newfound self-esteem. When she co-hosted The View, she was partial to bright eyeshadows, lipglosses and curly, flowing hairstyles. “Three years ago, do you think I’d ever appear without the lashes, hair, makeup? But now I’m more secure — why do I need to come here looking like Jessica Rabbit?” she says.

These days, Star favors glasses with dark, angular frames and neutral eyeshadows, which call attention to her features more subtly. Gone, too, are the bold cleavage and the big hair. But, says style expert Sarah Whittaker, this new look isn’t only about the weight loss: “This is a conscious decision to shift public opinion and the way people see her. She wants to be taken seriously as a voice of reason.” She looks, in a word, smarter.

Those brains are on display on her new show, Star Jones, which debuted Aug. 20. “Law and justice are my passion!” she exclaims. “We’re analyzing the most important legal, political and cultural issues affecting our nation today.”

But, just like her show, Star is still a work in progress. “Any person who has lost a substantial amount of weight will tell you that there are days when you walk by a mirror, then stop and say to yourself, ‘Oh, my goodness! Is that me?’ You need time to understand that the person who went from a size 24 to a size 10 is really you. It was a lot to process, but I’m learning to enjoy the changes more and more each day.”