Jelly Roll has explained how he was able to get in shape after weighing as much as 540 pounds at his heaviest.
The country music superstar, who released his most recent album Beautifully Broken in 2024, is the subject of a new profile feature in Men’s Health, breaking down his miraculous weight loss journey.
Jelly Roll, who recently said that he was “six to 12 months away” from dying at his heaviest, shared in the feature that he weighed 540 pounds. In February 2025, he was 380 pounds, while now he’s 265 pounds. That’s 275 pounds lighter than his heaviest weight.
He said that he started his journey after he stopped drinking and doing drugs, both of which he suggested he was addicted to.
“Even before I got into getting my blood work done, I went and got mental health therapy about my overeating,” he said. “I started treating my food addiction like what it was: an addiction. Why did I treat cocaine a certain way? I went to meetings for cocaine and found a sponsor and detoxed off of it and shit myself and went through real hard life—changing emotional choices to get off cocaine and codeine.”
When he started to treat his overeating as an addiction, it was a breakthrough moment for him. He briefly tried weight loss pharmaceuticals, such as Ozempic, early on in the process, but quit within two weeks. He added that he had his testosterone levels done, too, and he found out that he had the levels of “a preteen boy,” while his blood panels had some health professionals questioning how he was still alive.
He started to build a team of trainers and nutritionists in 2020 and 2021, and by 2024, he was well on his way to achieving his goals. When he appeared on his wife’s podcast in 2024, he said it was his goal to be on the cover of Men’s Health in 2026, and now he’s the first cover star of the year.