LeBron James spoke with CNN's Rachel Nichols about his diet, among other things, and the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar revealed that he weighs around 250 pounds. A partial transcript:
You've been on a pretty strict diet, I understand. You look lighter. How much weight did you lose?
I lost a few pounds. I haven't been in this weight class.
Can you give me a ballpark?
I'm in the 250-ish range. A lot lighter than I've been playing at the last few years, but I feel good.
The diet was strict, right?
Very strict. 67 days.
And what did you eat or not eat?
I'll tell you what I couldn't have. No carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no refined sugar. No nothing. Meat, fish, veggies, fruit.
What was the hardest thing to give up?
It was either pancakes or chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.
Did you go to bed dreaming of pancakes that you could not have?
What? All the time. I had the cookie monster chasing me a few times in my dreams.
Are you quicker on the court now?
I am. I am. And that's not such a good thing for the competition.
On a relatively old Miami Heat team, it made sense for James to stay bulked up. Miami was the fourth-slowest team in the league last season, and it's hard to imagine Cleveland will play at that pace. With Kyrie Irving running point and Kevin Love throwing outlet passes, you'd imagine new head coach David Blatt would let the Cavs run, and there's no greater threat in the open court than a slimmed-down James.
In the clip released by CNN from the sit-down interview, James also discussed reconciling with Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert and how difficult it would have been to leave the Heat if they had three-peated:
