Jelly Roll’s Chef Reveals Secret to Country Star's 140-Pound Weight Loss

At this year's CMA's, country singer Jelly Roll pulled up alongside his wife, Bunnie XO, looking slimmer and healthier than ever before. People were shocked by his dramatic transformation. That was the first award show appearance the “Son of a Sinner” singer made since losing more than 100 pounds. And just a few months later, he told E! News he hiked a mountain.

“There is no way that would have been possible beforehand,” he said, adding that it's "great to see that progress and we still are going.”

For the last few years, Jelly Roll has been open about his weight struggles, stating in an Instagram post in 2018, “I've been obese since I was a small child. All I've ever known was being fat, and I'm f--king miserable. I wanna skydive, bungee jump, ride a bull, parasail, and ride roller coasters, I want to LIVE a normal life and have a normal relationship with food. I fight addictions and alcoholism every day.”

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Now, nearly six years later, Jelly Roll is on track and working with nutritionist and chef Ian Larios to create healthy habits. We sat down with Larios to get the low day on what the duo has been doing to help the country star reach his weight-loss goals. 

"The battle was with food addiction," Jelly Roll said in an interview with People. "I've never had a healthy relationship with food, so that was the hard part...really fighting that demon at first and getting into that discipline and commitment. But once you get into that discipline and commitment, it's like an avalanche."

Anyone who's been on a weight-loss journey knows you can do endless workouts and cardio, but if you can't eat well consistently, you won't get very far.

Related: Jelly Roll Reveals Why He Won't Take Ozempic

"The biggest thing was his relationship with food," Larios told Men's Journal. "Being from the South it wasn't like I was gonna just start feeding him salads. The biggest goal was just to have good options available for him and teach him that there really is no bad food—it's just calories in, calories out at the end of the day."

According to Larios, one of the keys to Jelly Roll's weight loss was creating healthier versions of his favorite foods. In an Instagram video, Larios demonstrates how he prepares a high-protein version of Nashville-style hot chicken.

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"We air fry it. It tricks your brain into thinking this is like that hot, greasy Nashville deep-fried chicken. He's gonna feel like he's eating at home," Larios said. "It's healthy and full of protein that helps him stay on track."

Larios didn't want Jelly Roll to feel like he was in a calorie deficit.

"He can still eat the foods he likes, but he's at a point now where he's so focused on the weight loss that he doesn't even care about the food flavor."

While the change in food habits is integral, it's not the only contributing factor. Jelly Roll completely shifted his lifestyle, which is especially hard to do when you're constantly on the road.

“We just passed the halfway point of the tour and Jelly has been crushing it,” Larios said in an Instagram video in October, adding the singer has been boxing, playing basketball, and making healthy tweaks to his diet to stay in shape. 

Naturally, playing basketball and eating healthy isn't exactly de rigueur on tour.

"It's a tough sell to get everyone on the same boat in terms of 'let's just have a healthy tour,' " Larios said. "But the entire tour rallied around his health movement, and we were playing like five to six basketball games a day. He got everyone on the same page."

It helped him reach a pivotal moment where working out and eating healthy stopped feeling like a daily chore and instead contributed to overall happiness and well-being. 

While Jelly Roll has made a ton of progress in the last year, he's said time and time again this is only the beginning. Per an episode of wife Bunnie XO's "Dumb Blonde" podcast, he's set his eyes on being on magazine covers by March 2026 to show off his dramatic weight loss. 

"What I want the world to know and see is that I didn't become successful because of my weight," he said. "I became successful in spite of it. I somehow managed to be this successful carrying 550 pounds. That's insane."