Jason Kelce is making some strides in his weight loss journey.
The former Philadelphia Eagles center recently spoke to GQ and revealed that he’s lost nearly 20 lbs. and counting. The 36-year-old said he weighed 295 lbs. throughout the majority of his professional football career, and he’s looking “forward to losing some of those pounds” since retiring from the NFL.
“I don’t want to get too small. I think a lot of guys, especially offensive linemen, they lose too much weight, and then they look like bobbleheads because their neck gets so small, but their head stays the same size,” he told the outlet. “So for me, I feel like for some reason, 250 to 260 feels like I’ll be still big and be happy with the way I look without having a six-pack. But I’ll still be able to have that stature a little bit.”
Kelce said that right now, he weighs about 277 lbs. after losing almost 20 lbs.
“It’s hard to imagine another nearly 20 lbs. coming off, being honest with you,” he admitted. “But my back already feels better. My knees already feel better. So another 20 lbs. hopefully will make that much more adept at playing with my children.”
Kelce first opened up about wanting to lose weight following his 13-year career during a March episode of his New Heights podcast with brother Travis Kelce. “I look forward to getting skinny,” he said at the time.
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
During the show, Kelce responded to one fan who asked if he would try to copy the weight loss journey of NFL legend Alan Faneca, who ran a marathon after an impressive transformation.
“Yeah I’m not doing that,” he said immediately. “I don’t know how Alan’s doing it. I’m not running on pavement. I tried that already with the 5K, not gonna make a living doing that. My knees are already messed up enough.”
“But I’m gonna slim down. My goal is 250 lbs,” he noted, adding, “This last week I got down to like 285 because I knew I was doing this and then I had cake like three days in a row.”
Kelce continued to admit that he is never going to become the type to completely cut out his favorite foods or stop enjoying a drink now and then.
“There’s different ways to do this. I personally don’t subscribe to doing extreme diets like going all the way vegan or all the way carnivore or keto. F— no I’m not doing that,” he explained. “I downloaded MyFitnessPal and just started tracking calories. I feel like as long as I maintain my protein intake — so I keep my muscle — and just limit the calories, you’ll start to lose weight. So that’s the plan.”