Country Singer Tim McGraw Opens up About His 40-Lb Weight Loss: ‘It’s About Feeling Good’
McGraw says he now feels better both mentally and physically
Eleven-time CMA Award winner and three-time Grammy Award-winning singer Tim McGraw is widely considered a country music legend. Outside of his music career, McGraw has also taken his talents to film, appearing in hits like The Blind Side and Four Christmases. Tim McGraw, who seems to do it all, has been open about how prioritizing his health and 40-pound weight loss has contributed to the immense success of his career.
Tim McGraw’s family kick-started his weight loss journey
Sometimes we don’t recognize a change within ourselves until a loved one points it out, and that’s exactly what McGraw experienced.
In a 2019 interview with Men’s Health, McGraw—who’s married to fellow country singer Faith Hill—shared that by the time he played Dallas in Four Christmases, he was 215 pounds, despite growing up with an active lifestyle. But it wasn’t until his daughter Grace saw the movie and told him he appeared “big on the screen.”
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“I got out of it for a while,” said McGraw about following a healthier lifestyle. “I was in the prime of my career, and I wasn’t capitalizing on it.”
The diet change that helped McGraw lose 40 lbs.
In the Men’s Health interview, the “Live Like You Were Dying” singer shared that after his daughter’s comments, he decided to cut out “truck-stop foods” such as burgers and alcohol.
Many people use alcohol to help manage difficult emotions. In a 2019 interview with People, McGraw revealed that prior to cutting out alcohol, he would drink before performing to help calm his nerves. But regular movement alleviated that need. “That’s where my workout program came into play,” McGraw told People. “It took the place of alcohol and it is really important.”
Hector Perez, MD, advisor for Bariatric Reports, shared that eliminating alcohol from your diet can have big overall health wins, not just for weight loss. “Quitting alcohol is often the hidden lever that triggers dramatic metabolic change,” says Dr. Perez. “Alcohol is calorie-dense, appetite-stimulating and sleep-disrupting— all enemies of weight loss.”
McGraw made movement a daily habit
In an earlier 2018 interview with Men’s Journal, McGraw shared that his movement of choice was running, which led to not only a physical transformation, but an overall transformation in multiple areas of his life.
“In my early 40s, when I really started taking it seriously, I started running a lot,” McGraw told Men’s Journal. “That’s the first thing I started doing, and I found that made a big difference for me. It just started my day out better. I just realized how much it raised the bar on everything that I did. It raised the bar on my career. It raised the bar on my relationships with my friends. It just made me feel better, gave me a better mental outlook on everything that I was doing.”
Dr. Perez says he sees the total-body benefits of exercise in patients every day.
“Patients who begin moving more, even walking 20 minutes a day, report better mood before they lose a single pound,” says Dr. Perez. “It’s not just anecdotal. Exercise boosts dopamine and BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which are like fertilizer for your brain. BDNF sharpens focus, regulates mood and gives you the confidence that spills over into every other decision.”
In fact, he continues, “One of my patients started walking after surgery, not for weight loss, but to clear her head during a stressful divorce. She said that the weight loss was secondary to the emotional resilience she built. Movement heals in more ways than one.”
Tim McGraw keeps up his weight loss on the road
When you follow a particular diet or nutrition routine, sticking to it while traveling can be tough, but it’s possible. In the Men’s Journal interview, McGraw shared that he still maintains a workout routine even while touring.
“We start in the morning, and I always start all of my workouts with a 30-minute walk on the treadmill just to get everything loosened up and flowing,” said McGraw. “Then we’ll do some stretching and stuff. Typically in the mornings it’s more of active yoga and body weights. Then we go in and run stairs in the arena. We do a big CrossFit training session in the afternoon that usually goes from an hour to an hour and a half. It depends on how everybody holds up.”
In the People interview, McGraw shared that what started as a quest to feel better overall ended in a 40-pound weight loss.
“It wasn’t like I was trying to lose 40 pounds, I was just wanting to get healthy,” McGraw told People. “For me, it is more about feeling good and being where I want to be physically and on stage. When I am on stage in 98 degrees out there, you want to feel good. And my show isn’t ‘stand out there and not move around.’”
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