Shaquille O’Neal has been losing tons of weight. The former NBA player, 50, opened up about starting a new diet and shedding lots of weight in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, published on Monday, December 26. Shaq revealed that his ultimate goal is to lose more weight and do an underwear ad with his sons by his 51st birthday on March 6.
Shaq revealed that he was already down 40 pounds but he still had a little bit to go before he reached his goal. “I need to lose about 20 more, but impressive. Imma get real chiseled up and do an underwear ad with my sons,” he said. “Shirt off. Chiseled.”
Besides his goals, Shaq opened up about how he has plenty of people helping him along the way. “I got a couple people involved — It’s all about eating right. I got some blood work done,” he said, before revealing a friend told him that he may want to lose weight. “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. I won’t pay attention to any of that. I don’t care about none of that.”
He revealed that he was still learning about healthy eating habits and said that it’s been incredibly helpful. “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,” he explained. “Plus the supplements I’m taking, and the shakes I’m drinking, the weight just fell off.”
Shaq also shared that some of his new healthy habits included starting his days with a 30-minute walk and cutting out bread and soda from his diet. He revealed that he’s hoping to get in a similar physique to Mark Wahlberg and joked that he wanted to “be known as the Black Mark Wahlberg.” Shaq has shared a few photos of his weight loss on his Instagram, showing off his weight loss, and he does look great.