LeBron James says all the weight he lost over the summer had nothing to do with basketball but was rather just a personal challenge.
On Aug. 5, James shared some photos on Instagram that showed him looking much skinnier than usual. We found out that James decided to cut carbs over the summer, but no reason was given for the decision. There was a lot of speculation that James was cutting weight to help extend his basketball career, but it turns out that’s not the case.
James spoke with the media on Friday and was asked about the weight loss. He said it was strictly a personal challenge and “had nothing to do with basketball.”
“It had nothing to do with basketball. Everyone … I should have wrote a letter about that, too,” he joked, “so it would stop the speculations of why I did it.
“Every summer I challenge myself to do something different that’s outside the box. I stopped eating candy last summer — just like no candy for a whole summer — just to try to challenge myself to see if I can do it. So I decided to do this particular diet this summer for two months.
“It had nothing to do with basketball,” James insisted. “Nothing at all.
“Once I set out a goal, I like to accomplish it. And in the process I lost some weight and in the process the stories came out because of this juncture in my career. I’m 29 years old and I still can fly above the rim. I don’t need to lose weight to do that. Not at this point in my career.
“The great thing that I got out of that was to see how can my body transform. So as I get older in my career and need to shed some weight, I know exactly what I can get down to. But it had nothing to do with basketball. But it did make my quicker, so that helps our team.”
In an interview with CNN’s Rachel Nichols, James explained that his diet involved “no carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no refined sugar. No nothing. Meat, fish, veggies, fruit.”
He said giving up pancakes, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream was the hardest part. The diet lasted 67 days and he’s now through it. And, as he said, he’s now in a different weight class.
