Fat Joe Says He ‘Cut Carbs’ and Uses Ozempic to Maintain 200-Lb. Weight Loss

Mar. 15, 2025

Fat Joe (left) in 2001; (right) in 2024.Photo:Gregory Bojorquez/Getty; Prince Williams/FilmMagic

Gregory Bojorquez/Getty; Prince Williams/FilmMagic

Fat Joesays the secret to keeping the weight off has been changing his diet — and getting a little help from Ozempic.

“We just try to eat everything with the least carbs as possible…so we try to stay away from the bread, the pasta, the rice. That’s the smartest way to eat,” the “Lean Back” rapper, who at his heaviestweighed 470 lbs., toldUs Weekly.

Fat Joe, 54, credited Ozempic with helping him control his cravings, quipping, “Ozempic says you may only have two pieces of your favorite stuff.”

Ozempicis an FDA-approved prescription medication for people with type 2 diabetes. It’s the well-known brand name — along withWegovy— for semaglutide, which works in the brain to impact satiety, and has become a trendyweight loss tool.

Stock image of Ozempic, the well-known brand name for semaglutide.Mario Tama/Getty

Mario Tama/Getty

Fat Joe shared that he still eats carbs, telling the outlet, “This morning I ate breakfast, I had this toast. I cut the corner off, ate it and kept it moving,” he said. “Normally I would’ve ate the whole thing. But you know, that’s what we do. We cut carbs and try to be smarter.”

The rapper previously toldMen’s Healththat he began his weight loss journey after his close friend and frequent collaborator, Big Pun, died at age 28 from a heart attack in 2000.

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“I went to his funeral and I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge,” Fat Joe (real name: Joseph Antonio Cartagena) said. “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.' "

Taylor Hill/Getty

But although he’s 200 lbs. lighter, Fat Joe said he doesn’t plan on dropping the “Fat” from his stage name.

“My wife would kill me. She likes me being a big boy,” he said of his wife,Lorena Cartagena,whom he married in 1995.

“She hallucinates like I’m still that big boy," he said. “She loves that.”

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source: people.com