'Do You Want to Die': Shaquille O'Neal Reveals Details of Doctor's Visit That Led to His 50-Pound Weight Loss

Shaquille O’Neal is still watching his figure.

The NBA legend — like many people — has been spending his days shedding the pandemic weight he gained. O’Neal used to sit at 325 pounds but later noticed that that was no longer the case. He had reached 415 and decided that he would like to get it down to 350. O’Neal revealed that he has a major goal to reach in the next three months for his 50th birthday, and that is … “going topless.”

In a new interview, Shaq spoke about his new fitness goals to Men’s Health magazine. He said his, “Fitness goal is just to have a flat belly. Right now I got a 4.9 pack. I’ll probably bring it to a 8 pack by March.” The gym isn’t the only place O’Neal had to put in work. He also had to change some of his eating habits.

He said what sparked it was a doctor’s visit. “The doctor used that three-letter word that you never want to hear. He said ‘Do you want to die?'” He added that he struggles with a sleep disorder called sleep apnea where one’s breath repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. He said “it causes a whole bunch of other problems. So now I sleep with a C-PAP machine.”

O’Neal says he recalled a time when he was younger and would have “two club sandwiches, french fries, and pineapple soda” being his daily go-to meal. But now he’s switched it up to eating chicken, salmon, and meatloaf for lunch and eggs and turkey sausage for breakfast.

O’Neal admitted this diet is the hardest he’s ever been on and last month went into detail about his unwavering love for sandwiches and even said that he started to indulge in them more after the sudden losses of fellow NBA star Kobe Bryant and his sister Ayesha Harrison-Jex last year.

He told Men’s Journal, “when all of that was going on last year, I couldn’t sleep. So, I’d wake up at 3 in the morning and make a sandwich, 5 in the morning and make a sandwich. But I was starting to look old and I didn’t want to. So I said to myself, I want to take my shirt off on Instagram one last time.”

The 49-year-old explained that simply being more cautious of what he ate helped him shed the extra pounds and gain more muscle. “I started to see stuff that I haven’t seen in 20 to 30 years — like a six-pack. And I haven’t had one of those since I was on the 2006 Miami Heat.”

The Sports Emmy Award winner has so far dropped 50 pounds which puts him at 365. He has a little less than three months to lose the extra 15 pounds and reach his goal. Do you he can do it?