Fat Joe says at his heaviest, he weighed around 460 pounds, but after watching his friends pass away due to health complications the rapper decided it was time for him to stop living up to his moniker and has lost over 100 pounds to improve his health.
“I always took pride in being fat — that’s why my name is Fat Joe — and I always represented the big people, but I realized at a certain point all my big people are dying,” he told CNN. Joe’s friend and fellow rapper Big Punisher died in 2000 from a heart attack and last year he lost six friends to the same fate. Most of his late friends were younger than him, but around his same size. “I couldn’t see a clearer picture,” he said. “What’s the difference between me being in a funeral casket and my daughter running around the funeral home and she doesn’t have a dad anymore?”
The sobering realization motivated Joe to switch up his eating habits from eating “all the steak and lobster [he] want[s]” to eating healthier food in smaller portions more frequently throughout the day and making more frequent trips to the gym. The lifestyle change has given him dramatic results, and not just in weight loss numbers. “I was diabetic for 16 years, since I was 16,” he said. “I lost weight, no more diabetes.”  

(Photo: Manny Hernandez/PictureGroup)