Fat Joe Shares 200-Lb. Weight Loss and How He Pushed 'Forward' After Battle with Depression

Fat Joe is embracing happiness after losing 200 lbs.

The "Lean Back" rapper, 52, opened up about his health in a new interview with Men's Health for the magazine's "Hip Hop Health" series to mark hip-hop's 50th anniversary. Joe recalled weighing 470 lbs. at his heaviest and detailed how losing 200 lbs. saved his life.

Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Antonio Cartagena, went through a period of depression after his best friend Big Pun died unexpectedly in his 20s from a heart attack. When he attended his friend's funeral, he realized he needed to change his habits.

“I went to his funeral and I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge. Like, I seen me," Fat Joe recalled. "And I’m looking at his little daughter. She was the same age as my daughter. I said, ‘You gotta lose weight; otherwise you outta here.'"

Fat Joe described his mind as "the most complex Rubik's Cube you could ever, ever, ever, ever try to figure out" during the period of depression that began after the deaths of Big Pun and other friends and family. He compared his mental state to a scene in The Matrix Resurrections when Keanu Reeves' Neo sits in a bathtub with a rubber duck on his head.

"That’s what depression was like to me," Fat Joe told Men's Health. "When you’re fighting yourself, there isn’t a wall high enough that you can build. There isn’t an island you can go to. There isn’t a place you can go to where you get away from it, because you’re fighting your mind. You wake up, and then the minute you think about it, your brain sends you a message to say, ‘We’re not supposed to be happy.’ And then you fall right back into depression."

The performer said he has to "push forward" because he can't "sit there and dwell" after losing so many people in his life. He also changed his habits, which helped him emerge from this period of depression.

"Once you snap out of it, you should know what brings you there and to run the other way. The minute I feel unhappy, I go toward happy," he told the magazine. 

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Although he has everything he could want at his own house, he finds more joy when visiting his mother.

"When I pull up to my mother’s home that I bought for her, that's a modest home, it puts the biggest smile on my face," Fat Joe said. "And when I go inside, she’s happy and my father’s happy and everybody’s happy. I never told my daughter ‘no’ one time in her life for anything. It’s always been ‘yes.’ That makes me happy. I’m a big movie guy. John Wick 4. Air. That makes me happy. CNN makes me happy. When you’re on the road so much, you feel so happy to sleep in your bed.”

Now, Fat Joe is on a health journey, which began after he learned the science behind good habits. "Your body’s just a computer," he said. "It reads stuff you eat in different ways."

He is also checking his blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels every three months, as he knows how scary it can be to think you are doing everything right, but "your numbers are higher than you want." He understands that you have to "try new ways to figure out how to keep your stuff under control" because he's not going on this journey as a younger man. 

Elsewhere in his interview with Men's Health, Fat Joe shared the story of his driver, who told him that some were disappointed he lost weight. "I said, ‘Man, I thought you guys would be happy for me! Because I’m getting healthier,'" Fat Joe recalled. "And he said, ‘Nah, man, we feel like you left us. For years, you’ve been telling us being a fat guy is cool. We got upset with you, the big boys.’”

That conversation left him with mixed feelings, as he understood the confidence he gave to men at the height of his fame, and they now felt abandoned by him. "They didn’t realize I was just thinking about, yo, I really wanna be here for a long time," Fat Joe explained. "I really want to work out. I really want to be healthy. I wanna be here."

His body-positive stance continues to inspire, and he compared it to Lizzo's own form of body positivity today. "She’s embracing her beauty, saying, ‘I’m a big girl and I’m proud of it. All you big girls could rock out with me.’ I used to do that, too," he said.

Although his stage name might no longer fit, Fat Joe told Men's Health he has no plan to abandon it. “Although I’ve gotten health conscious on another level, it wouldn’t make sense to change it," he said. "Now it’s my brand. It’s what I built.”