How NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal shed 13kg in body transformation

Four-time NBA champion Shaquille O‘Neal has revealed the lifestyle changes he made before losing 13 kilograms in weight.

Basketball superstar Shaquille O‘Neal has shared his secret after losing 13 kilograms in weight.

As reported by The Sun, the 49-year-old NBA legend has stopped eating sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A sloppy diet of sandwiches and snacks has been replaced with small portions of fruit, vegetables and fish.

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Men‘s Journal reports that for the past six months – Shaq has cut out “bread, late-night lemon Oreos and Entenmann’s cakes”.

As well as working hard in the gym – his diet now includes “fruit, protein shakes, salads, fish, chicken and asparagus or other vegetables”.

Having long since retired from playing basketball, the four-time NBA championship winner said: “I just started to eat better and to make better decisions.

“My problem is, I’ve always been a sandwich guy. Sandwich for lunch, sandwich for dinner, sandwich for snack.

“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.

“I saw this 70-year-old guy on there, and he had muscles everywhere. So I just decided to switch it up.”

Shaq would work out about an hour every day. Picture: Instagram.

Nicknamed “Superman” during his playing career – O'Neal was well know for his strength on the court and his huge highlight-reel dunks.

Shaq and Kobe Bryant were teammates for the Los Angeles Lakers – they were hugely successful together and won three consecutive titles.

Kobe tragically died in a helicopter crash in 2020.

Shaq has attributed this as motivation to his health regime.

He said: “My sister passed away before Kobe.

“And then Kobe passed away and then I had 28 other people pass away.

“It was a really bad year and I didn’t want to do anything.

“So, when you don’t want to do anything, but you need to stay out of trouble, there’s two things you can do – eat and Netflix.”

Shaquille O'Neal walks on the grid before the F1 Grand Prix of USA at Circuit of The Americas. Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

O‘Neal won’t be back out on the court any time soon but he has been active in the gym.

He explained: “I do 20 minutes of cardio, I’ll do some chest, bis, tris, sit-ups, back and then I’m gone.

“30-45 minutes a day, plus cardio – so about an hour a day.

“I still got the bad hips and the achy joints, so I can’t be jumping and running around.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission