What the Singer Has Said

Jelly Roll has undergone a physical transformation in recent years, shedding nearly 300 lbs. — and he’s still committed to his new healthy lifestyle.

The Grammy nominee, who is up for three awards including Best Contemporary Country Album for Beautifully Broken, has been on his weight loss journey for nearly four years now, and stepped out at several pre-Grammys events, mixing and mingling with his peers. He even auctioned off the leather jacket he wore in the music video for his year-old collaboration with OneRepublic, “Hurt,” for a MusiCares charity benefit (after all, it doesn’t fit anymore!). After receiving the nominations, he recorded a vlog expressing his gratitude to the Recording Academy and God, and saying he was in the best headspace he had ever been to get the news.

In recent years, Jelly Roll has been public about his dedication to improving his health, and he has achieved major milestones in the process. The country singer, who weighed 550 lbs. at one point, told Music Mayhem that he started losing weight in 2022. By Jan. 2026, he revealed to Men’s Health that he had gotten down to 265 lbs.

He continued implementing healthier food and exercise habits over the next two years, and by 2024, he had lost 110 lbs. In December of that year, Bunnie Xo, that he wanted to lose weight “in front of everybody.”

“What I want the world to know, and I want people to see … is that I didn’t become successful because of my weight. I became successful in spite of it,” he said on the Dumb Blonde Podcast. “I somehow managed to be this successful carrying 550 pounds. That’s insane.”

Jelly started his weight loss journey in 2022

Jelly, whose birth name is Jason DeFord, began his weight loss journey in 2022. That year, he told Music Mayhem that his goals for 2023 were to focus on his health and “conquer the demon” that was his weight.

The “Winning Streak” singer has been vocal about his lifelong struggle with weight. In 2022, he shared on The Bobby Bones Show that his mother gave him the nickname Jelly Roll because he was a “chubby kid.” 

“I’ve been fat my whole life,” he said. “She started calling me Jelly Roll when I was young, and I spent the next 20 years trying to grow into the name.” 

He’s lost nearly 300 lbs. 

In 2024, Jelly told PEOPLE that he had kicked off his major weight loss by changing his lifestyle to prioritize exercise and making healthier food choices.

Jelly estimated that he lost between 60 to 70 lbs. of that weight during his Beautifully Broken tour, which was four months long. 

“It’s cool because there was once a time in life that the culture I built on tour was the opposite,” the Grammy nominee said. “It revolved around alcohol and drugs. And now our tour culture is around good eating and around exercising and doing emotional check-ins with our crew every day.”

On Jan. 2, 2026, the artist appeared on the cover of Men’s Health and revealed he had lost a total of 275 lbs.

Landing the cover was a milestone moment for Jelly Roll, who told his wife in December 2024 that his next fitness goal was to appear “on the cover of Men’s Health by March of 2026” — one he beat by a few months.

“I’m loving my body,” he told the outlet. “This is a whole new thing for me, y’all, I’ve been imprisoned to a fat suit for 30-something years.”

He says losing the weight has had benefits he didn’t expect

In an interview with Extra around the live premiere of Netflix’s Star Search, Jelly explained that he’d seen benefits in his whole life due to his weight loss. “I’ve gotten closer to God. I’ve gotten closer to myself. I’m a better father,” he said. “I’m more present with my children. You should see it, dude. I mean, I’m coaching my son’s basketball team this year … I just feel physically better, and I feel like I can physically do [things].”

One of the things that he welcomed back into his life: an improved sex drive. “I feel like I’m a teenager, dog,” he said. “I have the sex drive of a 17-year-old again. I’m f—ing pouncing on my wife. We’re having daytime sex again. It’s f—ing awesome.”

He initially lost 70 lbs. while training for a 5K

A major part of Jelly’s health journey has been walking and running. The dad of two told PEOPLE in April 2024 that he lost “70-something pounds” training for the 2 Bears 5K with Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura.

He was logging between “two and three miles a day, four to six days a week” to prep for the race, which was held in May 2024 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

“I feel really good,” he said. “I was thinking, I plan on losing another 100, 100-and-something [pounds]. If I feel this good down this weight, man, I can only imagine what I’m going to feel like by the time I go on tour.”

Bunnie joined her husband for his first-ever 5K, and they crossed the finish line together. After the race, Jelly told Entertainment Tonight that when he first started training in January, he “couldn’t walk a mile.” 

During his 5K training, Jelly used a sauna and did a cold plunge every day 

As a part of his 5K training, Jelly tacked on a few other self-care practices like hitting the sauna and cold plunging.  

“I’m doing 20 to 30 minutes in the sauna, six minutes in a cold plunge every day,” he said.

After completing the 5K, Jelly even shared a celebratory kiss in a cold plunge bath with Bunnie. 

He eats a high-protein diet 

Changing the way he eats has also had a huge impact on Jelly’s weight loss journey. During a November 2024 appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, the singer said he brought a nutritionist, Chef Ian Larios, along on his Beautifully Broken tour to cook him high-protein meals. 

In an October 2024 Instagram video, Larios shared what he had been whipping up for the musician. Some of Jelly’s favorite tour meals include a healthier version of Nashville-style hot chicken and French fries boiled in bone broth.

Jelly shared another look at his diet while on the road in a video on Instagram in March 2025 as Larios showed off a full day of the meals he prepared for the musician. This time around, his meals included a healthier take on Waffle House hashbrowns, peanut butter cookie dough bites and dairy-free high protein poutine.

He avoided weight loss drugs like Ozempic because of his fear of acid reflux

On Dumb Blonde, Jelly touched on his decision to lose weight “naturally.” While he said he is not against using Ozempic, the singer chose not to out of fear of getting acid reflux, a potential side effect of the weight-loss injectable.

“Every doctor I’ve talked to is for it,” Jelly said. “They said it helps. I just was afraid of it … As a singer, few things scare me more than acid reflux. Like, you’ll watch me get up out of a bed, I’ll burp and wake up panicked and go take something for it. You know? Because that stuff will just rip the vocal cords.”

Per the Cleveland Clinic, acid reflux can irritate the vocal cords.

“So I want to be very clear that I’ve done it naturally, but it wasn’t out of stubbornness or trying to prove a point. If it helps you, go get it. But for me, I was just petrified of the side effects of it,” Jelly added.

He’s worked to overcome his food addiction

Jelly told PEOPLE in November 2024 that he struggled with food addiction and had to change the way he’s “looked at food for the last 39 years” to lose weight. The singer said that battle began when he was a kid growing up in Antioch, Tenn.  

“Nobody in my house ever had [a healthy relationship with food], so that was the hard part, really fighting that demon at first and getting into that discipline and that commitment,” Jelly said. “But once you get into that discipline and commitment, it’s like an avalanche. Once that little snowball started rolling, it was on its way.”

He opened up about his food addiction on Instagram in 2018. The artist mentioned that three years prior, he weighed over 500 lbs., and it inspired him to lose “roughly 200 lbs” the following year. 

“All I’ve ever known was being fat , and I’m f—ing miserable,” he wrote. “I wanna sky dive, bungee jump, ride a bull, parasail , ride roller coasters, I want to LIVE a normal life and have a normal relationship with food.” 

He played basketball with his crew on tour 

Even while touring across the country, Jelly remained committed to his fitness goals. He told PEOPLE that he played basketball every day with his crew — and occasionally with his fans.

The singer shared videos on his Instagram of him making stops along his tour to talk with the University of Kentucky Basketball Team and play a game against the inmates at a juvenile detention center in Houston. 

“We got to go hang out with the boys at Harris County Juvenile and played a little ball,” Jelly wrote in the caption. “Turns out we’ve got some practice to do because they put a whoopin on us.”

He started shaving his face after the weight loss

On Nov. 13, Bunnie shared an Instagram zpost revealing that Jelly had shaved his face for the first time in the 10 years because he’d become “so skinny.”

“My husband, in honor of his shoot that he did today, is going to shave off his beard completely, because now that he’s so skinny — look at that freaking jawline — we wanna see that jawline, right, ladies?”

In response, Jelly joked, “We’re trying to see if a face lift might be in order.”

In January 2025, Bunnie said he was keeping up with the new grooming regimen. In an interview with Extra TV, she said the “coolest” part about her husband’s transformation, including him shaving his beard for the first time in 20 years, is “getting to see him look in the mirror and…fall in love with himself” again.