In an interview with Nichelle Turner for Entertainment Tonight, 15-time NBA All-Star Shaquille O'Neal broke down how he lost over 50 pounds after he started to dislike what he saw in the mirror.
When he won his first NBA championship during his time at the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000, Shaq weighed about 345 pounds. More recently, however, he said he was weighing over 400 pounds. "I was getting chubby and couldn’t even walk up the stairs. I didn’t like the way I looked in the mirror," he explained. "I was like, 'I'm gonna lose 20' and then I was trying to lose 20."
So far, however, he's been able to lose over 50 pounds and said he's currently weighing around 351 pounds. He's aiming to get somewhere between "315 and 330," he added, so he's not quite done with his weight loss journey yet. He joked that he currently has "a little 4.9 pack" and hopes to get "an eight pack" when he's closer to reaching his goal.
Shaq previously spoke about his plans to lose weight during an interview with Turner last year. At that point he had lost around 40 pounds and planned to lose more, but he added that he was helped a lot by getting people to advise him on a healthier diet.
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"I got a couple people involved—it’s all about eating right. I got some blood work done, a friend of mine called me and said, 'You're fat,' and she gave me this guy’s name, and he did some blood work, and you know, 'cause I was the athlete—I wasn't a salad eater," he told Turner in December 2022. "I won't pay attention to any of that. I don't care about none of that. I didn't know what the difference between a carb and a protein, at 50 years old I never knew. So, he was saying you can't do this, you can't do that, more vegetables, my iron's low. And once I just started changing those certain things, it dropped."
Elsewhere in the interview, he spoke about his third annual fundraiser with the Shaquille O'Neal Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club. Dubbed The Event and presented by Pepsi Stronger Together, the Oct. 7 show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas promises performances from big names and its proceeds going towards children in need.
Watch the interview with Shaq above.
