Eddie Lacy opened up in a recent interview with ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg about his struggle to balance his weight and football. Throughout his life, he has worked hard to maintain a playing weight while also enjoying the food he eats. He painted a picture of what it’s like for him to discuss weight gain with his teammates.
“Sometimes I wish I was a person with high metabolism who could just eat whatever they want and can’t gain a pound. You’ve got certain teammates who are like, ‘Man, it don’t matter what I eat, I can’t gain weight.’ And I’m like, ‘It don’t matter what kind of diet I’m on, it’s super hard for me to lose weight, and it’s so easy for me to put it back on.'”
In 2016, Lacy shed 22 pounds through P90X workouts and totaled 360 rushing yards in just five games. But in late October, he hurt his ankle and required season-ending surgery to repair it. After the season, Lacy decided to test free agency and thought a change of scenery would help.
When he visited teams, they all asked him to step on the scale which read 267 pounds. Even he was shocked at what he saw. After finalizing a one-year deal with the Seattle Seahawks, Lacy started shedding weight for the Seahawks.
In his contract, there are “seven weight goals”. If he reaches his target weight at each of his seven pre-set weigh-ins, he receives $55,000 per weigh-in. Initially, it drove him to succeed; now he wishes it never reached the public.
“I hate that it has to be public. Because it’s like, if you don’t make it, what happens? Clearly you don’t get the money, but whatever. I don’t really care about that. It’s just more the negative things that are going to come.”
Lacy’s biggest problem with the weigh-ins is even if he makes the weight, social media destroys him. It’s hardly ever positive.
“It sucks,” Lacy said. “It definitely sent me into a funk. I wish I could understand what they get out of it.”
“They” refers to social media trollers that are waiting to pounce. Lacy’s weigh-ins haven’t been made public in some time; nearly two months and clearly it isn’t by accident.
Moving forward, Lacy’s situation can help other athlete’s second guess using weight-loss as an incentive to do something they should already be motivated to do – get in the best shape humanly possible.
