Gina Carano recently appeared on the JAXXON Podcast ahead of her return to MMA after 17 years away from the sport. During the conversation, she opened up about the physical toll her weight gain took on her body and the health struggles she faced before committing to her comeback.
Carano traced the root of the issue back to the fallout from her public cancellation and firing, describing how the emotional impact turned inward.
“I got really depressed and instead of taking it out on other people, I kind of took it out on myself and gained a lot of weight,” she said. “I’ve been working since September 2024 to take off that weight and it’s a massive amount.”
She described how the weight affected her day-to-day life. “It hurt to walk in September 2024. My knees, my ankles, everything hurt so much because I’d put so much weight on,” she told the panel. “Here I am. It’s saving my life again.”
The health consequences went beyond physical discomfort. “The amount of weight I’ve lost and where my health was at, I had my blood work, I was pre-diabetic,” she said, noting that MMA had once again become a form of salvation for her wellbeing.
Carano also spoke about how the weight gain affected her sense of self. “I’m reclaiming my body and I have like a little bit of a body dysmorphia. I’m like, where did it all go? Like, what happened?” she said.
She continued: “They did my makeup, not today, but they did my makeup for the first time in like years and I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I cannot recognize myself sometimes.’ So it’s really surreal what’s happening right now. But I’m loving it.”
When the hosts asked how she began her weight loss journey, the answer reflected just how serious her condition had become.
“I literally just had to start with walking. That’s how sick I was. I had to just start walking,” she said, crediting her partner Kevin Ross for his steady encouragement throughout the process.
Carano was asked directly how much she weighed at her heaviest but chose not to reveal the number, instead turning it into a personal milestone.
“What I want to do is hold the amount of weight on the day,” she explained, describing her plan to carry the equivalent in dumbbells at the weigh-in. “I want to take that and I want to hold it on the day of weigh-ins and wow at the finish line. I’ll probably just cry.”
She summed up her overall journey with a sense of quiet determination: “I’m already so proud of that. I did something that was really hard. I reached into like deep parts of myself that I wouldn’t have ever reached into.”
