Jameis Winston Lost 20 Pounds Just By Cutting Out Potato Chips

Jameis Winston lost almost 20 pounds this offseason by cutting back on foods like potato chips.

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When you hear Jameis Winston’s name, what's one of the first things that comes to your mind? Uh, crab legs, right? For better or worse, the Buccaneers quarterback will always be closely associated with the crab legs that he shoplifted from a Publix store back in 2014. But thanks to an ESPN.com feature on Winston, there’s a good chance that you’ll also start thinking about another type of food when you hear Winston’s name from now on.

The ESPN.com feature takes a close look at the diet and fitness program Winston has been following since the end of the 2015 NFL season. Winston put up great numbers during his rookie campaign—he passed for more than 4,000 yards, good for third-most ever by a rookie QB—but he wasn’t happy with the way his body looked while he was doing it.

Winston has struggled with weight issues for the last few years, so he hired Michael Jordan’s former trainer Tim Grover to help him shed some pounds. And according to Grover, one of the first things he asked Winston to do was to cut waaaaaaay back on the potato chips that had become a staple of his diet. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get Winston to do away with them altogether, but he came up with a simple strategy for Winston to follow.

“Instead of eating a whole bag of potato chips,” Grover told ESPN.com, “cut it down by a third. It’s too difficult to give individual food plans, and it’s better to change eating habits.”

Winston—who admits he used to like to down chips by the bag late at night—took Grover’s advice and went a step further. In addition to cutting down on his chip intake, he also switched up the kinds of chips he was eating and stopped eating them in the middle of the night.

“I try to eat the healthier potato chips like Sun Chips and the kettle cooked chips,” Winston told ESPN.com. “But instead of eating them for a snack at night, I just moved that up with lunch. That was very helpful—eating at the right time of day.”

The result? Winston has lost almost 20 pounds (18 to be exact!). And while he’s done more than just cut out chips to do it—he’s also eating smaller portions and, more importantly, watching when he eats—the chips were apparently Winston’s biggest nemesis. So now that they’re gone, he should look noticeably lighter and leaner than he did at times last season.

Go here to check out the rest of the ESPN.com feature on Winston’s weight.

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