Former football star’s weight gain is officially scary

JARED Lorenzen played on the biggest stage in sport but since retiring the 36-year-old’s weight has ballooned to unfathomable levels.

Jared Lorenzen (13) and Eli Manning (10) during the New York Giants win in Super Bowl XLII against the New England Patriots. (Photo by Sporting News via Getty Images)

THE “Hefty Lefty” wants to go by a new nickname.

Former NFL quarterback Jared Lorenzen was known in his playing days for his large frame, but ballooned to 225kg last year.

“Right now, if I didn’t wake up tomorrow, it wouldn’t be a shock to many people,” Lorenzen, 36, said in a video posted on Facebook. “‘Well, yeah, you know, look how big he is? Damn.’”

Lorenzen is now launching a video project to help inspire others to drop pounds, as he embarks on his own mission to lose weight, Kentucky.com reports.

The Jared Lorenzen Project will be shown on the Now Let’s Get Fit Foundation’s website, Nowletsgetfit.com, and the plan is for him to use the video journal to lose weight and help others do so.

Lorenzen was last seen in 2014 playing in the Continental Indoor Football League for the Northern Kentucky River Monsters. But apparently his weight has spiralled to unfathomable levels.

The video is the brainchild of filmmaker Anthony Holt. He put together the 2015 documentary, “Gone in an Instant,” that chronicled the story of Antoine Walker, who went from a millionaire NBA player to bankrupt and remaking himself.

Lorenzen, a record-holding star for the Kentucky Wildcats in the 2000s, and Holt met at Walker’s film debut, where the idea was hatched.

“We started spitballin’ and that’s where we came up with the idea of doing it,” Lorenzen told Kentucky.com. “There’s going to be a lot of me everywhere, but, hopefully, when we’re done, there won’t be as much of me.”

Lorenzen doesn’t have a set goal for his weight loss, but he strives to begin living healthy and get others — particularly children — to avoid obesity.

“We just want to make sure kids get involved,” he said. “My [part] is going to be the educational side of it with the kids. Letting people know that, ‘Hey, you need to have healthy choices in food, you need to exercise, you need to do some of those things you hear about or you could become big like this.’ I fight my demons every day, so I’ve got to continue to work at it.”

Originally published as Former football star’s weight gain is officially scary