Ed Sheeran Reveals That He Lost 50 Pounds By Eliminating One Thing From His Diet
For Ed Sheeran, taking a year off from making music was all about exploring the world and experiencing different cultures in ways he never had before.
For his body, Ed Sheeran’s gap year was all about gaining weight. At least, that’s what happened in the beginning.
“I doubled in size,” Sheeran said Thursday morning during an interview with BBC Radio 1 The Breakfast Club. “Sweatpants were the only things that fit and I thought everything had shrunk in the wash, but it hadn’t.”
In order to cut down on the weight gain, Sheeran decided to eliminate one thing from his diet: beer.
The 25-year-old said during the interview that he hadn’t realized how much weight he might gain when he wasn’t performing nightly.
“It was the beer. Well, I’m back on beer now, because I’m fine, but I cut out beer for a bit and started exercising which was quite weird.”
Sheeran went on to add, “I didn’t realize how much I burned on stage. I stopped touring and I just ballooned instantly.”
Fans who have missed Ed Sheeran are happy to have the boisterous redhead back in the spotlight after he opted to take 2016 off. Since returning to social media in December, Sheeran has released two new singles and revealed that his newest album, Divide, will be available March 3. Pre-orders will begin at midnight on Friday, Rolling Stone reported.
÷ out 3rd March. Pre-order will go live at midnight in your country x pic.twitter.com/V3mHxxCaOP
— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) January 12, 2017
The first two songs from Sheeran’s newest album are titled “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill.” Of the new singles, Billboard wrote “Needless to say, Sheeran is telling the world he’s back in compelling fashion.”
Others must have thought so, as well. The two singles are the first Sheeran has released since he dropped “Photograph” in May of 2015, and it seems that fans couldn’t get enough of the British crooner’s new music.
For example, Forbes reported that both of Ed Sheeran’s new singles broke the record for the number of streams on Spotify: “Shape of You” earned 6,868,642 streams in the first day, while “Castle on the Hill” earned 6,168,395 streams. The previous record was held by One Direction’s “Drag Me Down,” which earned 4,759,698 in the first 24 hours.
Ed Sheeran Is First Artist to Debut at Nos. 1 & 2 on Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks Chart https://t.co/tMj7GATTSj via @billboard
— Ed Sheeran Updates ? (@EdSheeran_EU) January 12, 2017
Sheeran’s much-anticipated return to music follows a year of radio silence from the musician, during which he had the opportunity to explore the world in ways he’s never done before. In speaking with The Breakfast Club, Sheeran noted that touring the world and playing shows is much different than traveling for pleasure.
“I never really saw anything other than a hotel room, a venue and a bar [while touring], so I wanted to go traveling properly,” Sheeran said during the radio interview. “No one really cares about me in Japan. There are like two people that like me in Japan…I specifically picked places that I wasn’t really liked.”
During his travels, Sheeran said he went white water rafting, swimming with sharks, and bungee jumping. In addition to visiting Japan, Sheeran traveled to Ghana, Iceland, and Australia.
“I wanted to see the actual country. I went to Ghana, spent like a month in Ghana, which was nice. Spent like two weeks in Iceland. Australia…I went to places I wanted to go to…”
Even though Ed said he tried to choose places where he was lesser known, he said he did run into quite a few fans aboard a cruise ship.
“My biggest market in the world is the Philippines and every staff member on the boat was Filipino, so I just had a wave of people come to my room every five minutes asking for selfies,” he told the Breakfast Show. “I spent my whole time taking pictures with Filipino people.”
What do you think of Ed Sheeran’s return to music? Were you happy to hear his new singles? Why or why not?
[Featured Image by John Phillips/Getty Images Entertainment]
