James Brown is quite literally a shell of himself. After trying to lose weight for 15 years, the longtime CBS Sports host finally hit on a diet that works. He lost 74 pounds, going from 292 pounds to 218.
Why did this one work after others didn’t? Brown credited his Christian faith for helping him stick with a diet this time. “I made that commitment from a faith standpoint — let me do this for the right reasons. Couple that with this being the right program, I’ve realized tremendous success.”
Brown said his former football-playing colleagues helped with what he called “negative incentives, which is an oxymoron.”
“A couple of years ago when I was at Fox, I lost five pounds in one week and was excited,” Brown said. “I came in and told Howie Long about it. He looked at me and said, ‘That’s like taking a cup of water out of the Pacific Ocean. Talk to me when you really lost some weight.’
“When I did, he was one of the first people to reach out to me — along with Shannon Sharpe — who sent a note that just said, ‘Congratulations.’ That was a paragraph from him.”
Brown also responded to motivational coaching from former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher. When Brown started the program, Cowher looked him in the eye and said, “You know what to do.”
“That’s all I needed,” Brown said.
