Ed Sheeran has been on a wellness journey throughout 2025.
“I got to the start of the year, and basically I put on a load of weight last year. I was, like, ‘I’m gonna hit gym-heavy, try and lose a stone,” Sheeran, 34, said during a Wednesday, September 24, appearance on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy show, referring to the British measurement that equals approximately 14 pounds. “Then, as I was doing that, I was like, ‘I want to see how far I can take this.’”
He added, “I’ve never actually ever had a six-pack in my life. I was, like, ‘I’m gonna see if can do it.’”
Sheeran told radio host Andy Cohen that his weight loss attempt was “going alright.”
“I keep messing up because I keep being out somewhere, like, ‘I’ll have a couple of beers,’” the Play musician quipped. “But, I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life.”
Sheeran previously revealed that he lost 50 pounds after navigating “external pressure” from the public to resemble other artists.
“I didn’t run, I didn’t even touch exercise for a long time,” he said on the “Behind the Medal” podcast in December 2019, hinting at his future intentions to run a marathon. “Now, I do, like, 45 minutes in the morning and then maybe have a swim or [do] sit-ups. I think it’s all about training. I think, for me, it would be doing a 10k first. I would have to do it somewhere where a lot of people aren’t watching.”
In addition to working out, Sheeran also had to adjust his diet, though touring certainly made things difficult.
“I had to make a real effort on this tour,” he explained, noting his weight “ballooned” while on his Multiply tour in 2015. “It’s always America that gets me. America in buses. You finish a gig in America [and] you get a tray of chicken wings, sit in the back of the bus, watch The Simpsons, drink a couple bottles of wine. Then that’s every single day so it just piles on you.”
According to Sheeran, he never thought about the number on the scale until his career hit a fever pitch.
“Whenever I’ve been big, there’s always online trolls or newspapers or comments,” Sheeran said. “In terms of actual pressure, internal pressure of, like, of record labels being, like, you have to be slimmer, no. The music industry is music first and then image second. I think there’s definitely a lot of external pressures. You kind of get it in your head that you need to look like everyone else.”
Sheeran also stopped smoking, drinking alcohol and cut unhealthy junk food from his diet.
“It’s the first time I’ve been really healthy,” he said during a 2021 interview on BBC Radio 1. “I’ve stopped all the bad habit stuff in my life [and] I started exercising every day. I was eating a takeaway every single day, and now I don’t eat takeaway every single day. It’s been good. It happened pretty much as soon as [my] tour ended [and] it just happened because I wasn’t having chicken wings and two glasses of wine each night.”