Men’s Health, revealing to a reporter what motivated him to shed the weight. The South Bronx native, born Joseph Antonio Cartagena, explained that he fell into a deep depression after his best friend and mentee Big Pun, who struggled with a heart condition, unexpectedly passed in 2000. “I went to his funeral and I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge,” the “What’s Luv” artist told the outlet about Pun’s funeral. “Like, I seen me.
And I’m looking at his little daughter. She was the same age as my daughter. I said, ‘You gotta lose weight; otherwise you outta here.'”But Joe turned to excessive amounts of alcohol and ended up gaining even more weight.
At his heaviest, he reached 470 pounds.His depression kept him down until 2002 when he made his first attempt to get fit. He tried everything outside of surgery, he claimed, from running on treadmills in a plastic suit to unsuccessful changes in his diet.
But the “Lean Back” rapper, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 12, started to notice changes once he learned more about the science of food. “Your body’s just a computer.
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