If you’ve had a pregnant wife/girlfriend, you know what Bradley Beal went through. I added 15 pounds when my wife was pregnant with our second daughter — a pregnant woman’s metabolism needs more calories and for energy, “they’re eating for two,” and often what they want is comfort foods. And deserts. Put that around a non-pregnant person and the temptation can be overwhelming at times, leading to simple overeating.
Washington’s Bradley Beal says he gained 20 pounds of sympathy weight last season while his partner Kamiah Adams was pregnant with their son Bradley Beal II. He spoke about it to TuAnh Dam of Yahoo Sports.“Oh, pizza. It was always late-night pizza for me,” Beal said. “It was just pizza and ice cream. That’s all we ate — pizza and ice cream, pizza and ice cream.”
He said those extra 20 pounds went straight into his legs, but even that wasn’t enough to slow Beal down too much. The guard had one of the best years of his career, starting all 82 games while averaging 22.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists.
He’s lost the weight though, starting his cleaner diet the first week of the offseason, so don’t expect to see him waddling around the court this year.
Every training camp we hear about players having lost 15 pounds or gained 10 pounds of muscle and never having been in better shape. Veteran observers greet these proclamations with shrugs — some of them are true, but if everybody says it every year there’s some boys crying wolf out there.
Beal I believe. Nobody wants to admit to gaining sympathy weight.
Beal and the Wizards enter another season with their core intact, a new piece added (this year Dwight Howard, once he gets healthy), and questions believers pointing out on paper they should be a threat in the East. At this point, it’s like a player saying he lost 20 pounds in the offseason — fine, but show me how things are now going to be different on the court because of it. I’m not sold these Wizards are much different than the previous versions. They need to prove it.
