Charles Barkley was looking thinner than usual as the NBA season began, and he was at his usual spot on the broadcast.
On Wednesday, October 22, Barkley, 62, revealed his progress with losing weight on the premiere of Inside the NBA on ESPN, which pleased his fellow hosts.
“You have lost weight,” Kenny Smith said to Barkley, while Ernie Johnson commented, “Take a look at this guy.”
Barkley thanked his colleagues for their kind words and jokingly thanked his doctors at Ro, the telehealth company promoting a GLP-1 drug that Barkley has been taking to help him lose weight. In April, the NBA Hall of Famer became a celebrity spokesperson for the company.
Smith, 60, stated, “You mentioned you were, like, riding a bike and jogging.”
Barkley replied, “I’m also working out. It’s important to work out. You can’t only rely on a shot.”
When asked about his predictions from the previous season, Inside the NBA panelist Shaquille O’Neal also couldn’t help but tease Barkley about his slimmer appearance.
O’Neal, 53, joked, “That was last year. Chuck was heavy last year. But now, look at him. He’s a sex symbol.”
Barkley smiled and responded, “He does have a valid point about the sex symbol part.”
Barkley revealed in 2023 that he had shed over 60 pounds in half a year after starting Mounjaro, an injectable prescription drug for weight loss.
During a May 2023 appearance on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show, Barkley stated, “I started at 352 [pounds], and I’m currently at 290. I’m beginning to feel like a person again, instead of a fat slob.”
Barkley said he felt “amazing” from a combination of “working out” and taking a once-weekly injection.
Barkley joked, “My doctor told me, ‘There are many young people who are overweight. However, there are not many old people who are overweight; they are all deceased.’”
He added, “I thought, ‘I want to stick around.’ I intend to get down to 270 [pounds] because I want to be here.”
Barkley attributed much of his weight gain to a hip replacement he underwent in 2016.
During an interview promoting Ro in April, he stated, “I gained 100 pounds when I had my hips replaced. You’re unable to do anything for many months. It’s challenging to lose weight as you age because you can’t exercise. Your metabolism changes, first and foremost. Moreover, you’re unable to work out for five or six hours daily like you did when you played professional [basketball].”
Barkley said that losing weight had enabled him “to feel much more like myself.”
He added, “You don’t notice a difference when you lose 10 pounds. But when you lose 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, your back, knees, and ankles feel it. I golf every day during the summer. It was wonderful not having that 50-pound dumbbell weighing down my back and neck all the time.”
Inside the NBA, which was broadcast on TNT from 1989 to 2025, will be ESPN’s pregame, halftime, and postgame show throughout the 2025-26 NBA season.
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