Action Bronson Weight Loss Journey – The Rapper’s Height, Wife, & Skinny Look

Action Bronsons weight loss

Action Bronson, real name Ariyan Arslani, is a guy whose ‘nickname’ resonates exactly who is – he’s all about action and activity.

He is most commonly known as being a New York rapper, but he is also a globally recognized fashion icon.

And he has starred in quite a few movies as well – remember that one, Dope?

He was also the partial owner of the Brooklyn Nets and played a part in getting them to move to his home borough.

Many people find him to be a man of mystery with a never-ending supply of surprises and innovations to capture his fans.

He is a real representative of the diverse city of New York!

And recently he added another intriguing badge to his name and that is that he lost a huge amount of weight.

That’s what we want to tell you about.

All his fans want to know what drove a guy who loves food and who loves to cook, to lose so much weight.

Let’s find out more about the life of:

Ariyan Arslani (AKA Action Bronson) – Born 2nd December 1983

Action Bronson
PHOTO BY JESSE VEGA FOR VICELAND.

Early years

He comes from Albanian ancestry on his father’s side.

His father was an Albanian Muslim musician; a guitarist. His mother was Jewish.

He was born Ariyan Arslani in Flushing, Queens, in New York City, New York in December 1983, and raised as a Muslim.

He says… “I’m just me. I’m not defined by any specific cultural thing,”

Today, he identifies as American, still; he regrets that he no longer speaks his native tongue.

“I don’t speak Albanian. I haven’t spoken it or heard it spoken every day to me for a very long time.”

From an early age, he was interested in rap.

However, his other love was cooking, as his parents owned a restaurant.

He was often spotted in the restaurant’s kitchen.

This led him to enroll in the Art Institute of New York’s culinary program.

He successfully completed this program before starting to work in his parents’ restaurant.

High school years

Action remembers being brought up in a multicultural type upbringing filled with plenty of extended families whom his father brought over to live with them.

Action Bronson was a Bayside High School dropout, unfortunately.

Fortunately, he had plenty of charm, apparently, which served him well and helped him along the way to develop into a well-known hip-hop star.

So after dropping out of school, he enrolled for a short while at a culinary school.

He got fired from one gig he was working at and then went to work in his father’s kitchen.

His young adult years

He started paving his own road to success just by doing the things that he loved doing.

And he actually had a huge passion for food.

So as soon as his formal education was over, he learned how to cook from his mother.

His family owned a Mediterranean restaurant, so he learned all he could further about the profession.

When he had completed his studies at the culinary school, he worked as a chef in a few restaurants all around New York City.

But then a got a leg injury and this changed his life completely after that.

His broken leg made it out the question for him to continue working, hustling and bustling around in the hectic New York City restaurants.

He was able to use his recuperation from his leg injury as the opportunity to switch vocations — and thus a foodie rapper was born.

Is Action married?

Action is quite private when it comes to his personal life.

We know so far that it seems he has three kids.

His ex-girlfriend’s name has never been revealed, although it appears as if she was black, with her father originating from the West Indies.

So she had a bit of Indian in her too.

They had two kids, Hannah, and Elijah.

They were in a relationship for a long time.

He is not married and there are no reports of him being married to anyone.

His current girlfriend’s name is Valeria and she is of Colombian descent, although a New York native.

Apparent she is a clinical social worker as well as being a certified yoga instructor and therapist, and also a devout Hindu.

His little boy who was born in November 2019 from this relationship was his inspiration to lose weight.

They called him Benicio, and it translates to the Benevolent One.

Being a tattoo freak, Action has the names of his kids and latest girlfriend tattooed on his body.

He made a name for himself as a rapper in 2011

He made a major-label debut with a project in 2015 called Mr. Wonderful.

His music was inspired by the golden age, 90’s boom bap-style rap – this was what was reigning supreme when he was an adolescent.

He worked with the likes of products such as Statik Selektah and The Alchemist.

For almost a decade now, he has been putting out his music.

He has never submitted to tailor his music to what is at the top of the charts or to current trends.

But he did clock in some features from Chance the Rapper and the late Mac Miller, to turn him out to what he ‘raps’ about today.

He likes keeping his music more local, making use of New York musicians such as A$AP Rocky, Meyhem Lauren, and Big Body Bes.

His other great love is food

Even though Action is first known as a New York rapper, he has many other loves, as we mentioned above.

Having grown up inside the family restaurant, it is not surprising that he has such a great love for food.

He did have a professional career as a chef before moving over to music.

However, his musical success didn’t take away his passion for cuisine, to the point that he even hosted his food travel show “Fuck, That’s Delicious.”

Another TV show he had was called “The Untitled Action Bronson Show”.

This was a raunchy cooking show.

In fact, he often raps about food and has an album out with the name Well Done and Lamb Over Rice.

He has also written a book called Stoned Beyond Beliefcan you believe it!

It’s a guide to marijuana.

He also has a hard-cover memoir out called I’ll Start Tomorrow which is expected to be released soon in March of 2021.

This memoir is aimed at teaching readers “What to scarf while stoned, helpful tips like how to stash weed under your nuts and so much more.”

In the book, you will find 35 weed recipes!

But it’s also an honest look at his struggles with weight, his food addiction, and his journey to self-acceptance.

Apart from his soundtrack credits, he’s also been in movies as well

He appeared in “The King of Staten Island,” “The Irishman” and played himself in “Game Over, Man!

If that’s not enough, he also announced a new fragrance of his, called Splash by Baklava.

So it clear to see that he is a very multi-talented kind of guy.

But as if he is not satisfied with all these things, one of these greatest feats has been his amazing weight loss.

Men’s Health even featured his story because he lost over 125 pounds and that was only last year.

The days of weighing in at 400 pounds are over!

Action’s rise to prominence

2012 was quite a fruitful year for Action Bronson.

It was this year he was signed to Goliath Artists and also with Warner Bros a bit later.

Before he released anything through the label, he was moved over to Atlantic Records.

He released his EP (extended play) “Saaab Stories” in June 2013.

Then he had a debut studio album which was released in 2015 called “Mr. Wonderful”.

This entered the US Billboard 200 chart at No. 7. It was No. 3 on the US R&B and no. 2 on the US Rap charts.

After that he also released two studio albums; “Blue Chips 7000” was in 2017 by Atlantic Records, and then came “White Bronco”.

Empire released this because, by this time, Action had parted ways with Atlantic Records as well as Viceland where his Fuck, That’s Delicious had featured.

He then announced that he was going on tour in support of his new album, “White Bronco”.

His song, “Consensual Rape” caused heaps of controversy

The public caused a huge uproar when Action’s song, “Consensual Rape” came out.

Its lyrics promoted misogyny, homophobia, and transphobic connotations.

He was even going to appear at the Spring Fling concert, organized by the George Washington University, but because of all the controversy around the song, the students denied him the chance after starting a petition to have him removed.

His internet fame

Action Bronson has become quite popular on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram; also Twitter.

He has around 1.5 million followers and around 555,000 followers on Facebook.

He uses these to promote all his career endeavors.

That means he would have promoted his newest album “White Bronco” there as well.

So if you are a fan of his, you can just skip over to these social media platforms and see what he is getting up to next.

He got one thing right and that’s his weight

Action Bronson skinny
CREDIT: NOAM GALAI/GETTY; ACTION BRONSON/ INSTAGRAM

Even though Action is not married, when his son was born, he knew that he had to make a few changes [1].

The scale was sitting at 375 pounds.

So he started to wake up at 4 a.m. to do workouts.

He decided to drastically change his lifestyle in 2020.

And as we know 2020 was the start of the pandemic and Action suffered like many people have and are still with the pandemic.

He lost quite a bit of work and money.

This time, he turned his attention to his own health.

He started applying himself to do some very grueling workouts, starting at 4 in the morning.

He also went on a low-carb diet so that the pounds would fall off, and he did this in a matter of a few months.

He said he scared himself into starting a healthy lifestyle and now it has impacted his life; every facet of his life.

Action Bronson has loved exercise since he was a little kid already

He used to love to stay up at night watching all the Strongman competitions on TV.

So that by the time he was 13, he had started to lift weights.

He said he was a huge fan of Creatine, to the point that even his high school football jersey had the word ‘Creatine’ plastered at the back instead of his own name.

His father would always yell at him, telling him he was a ‘shrimp’; that the reason he was so short was that the weight lifting and squatting had stunted his growth!

You can see that Action had a hectic type of lifestyle, with his finger in many pies – juggling his music career, his food show, and now he has a newborn child too.

Suddenly it hit home when the pandemic arrived and it made him think hard and serious about the fact that he weighed over 25 stone, and he was only 36.

He knew he had to do something fast.

“I can’t be walking around at my age holding like close to 400 pounds. It’s a dangerous game we’re playing here.”

Also Read: LeanBean Fat Burner Reviews

Now he says, he can’t go a day without working out

But he also says it’s become addictive for him to work out because he feels that if he goes a day without working out, he’s going to gain all the weight he lost!

That’s how it all literally happened for him, he dropped 110 pounds in just 5 months and he did it through a rigorous exercise regime and his low carb diet which was packed with high protein vegetables.

And he says he’s not done yet.

He says this way of life is “gonna be going on for the rest of my life [2].

I’m never gonna allow myself to not be in shape again.

It’s not worth it. I love life. I don’t wanna miss anything.”

Let’s check what he does for his workouts

  • He says he wakes up at 4 a.m.
  • Next, he takes care of what he has to so that by 5 a.m. he out of the door and off to the gym to work out with his personal trainer Dave Paladino. This includes 45-minutes of boxing and also other intense routines. Even though he has a strict regime, Action says he has become much more interested in food now because he is so fascinated by the nutritional value of his meals.
  • He said changing his diet was imperative to his weight loss, as well as going to the gym, plus “willpower”, of course.
  • He starts his mornings with protein shakes and scrambled eggs. The shakes consist of olive oil, almonds, fruit, protein, and almond milk. He makes two portions of the shake so he can have one before his workout and one straight after. If he needs a snack he will munch on roasted nuts with cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and honey
  • He says that in the gym, he is no longer trying to be the powerlifter anymore. He had a hernia op [3] caused by lifting weights in the past. Those days are over for him, he says. What he does now is high intensity, high weights, and high impact – for that, he expects high results. “I work at that type of intensity about four times a week. And the other days I just run and do different types of cardio. I run on the bridge a lot. I try to get my stamina up, different things, mix it all up”.
  • For his dinner, he likes to ‘keep it light’ so he has a low-carb meal, usually consisting of chicken and broccoli.
  • Of course, he misses the occasional carbs like pizza and good pasta. As for desserts, he has completely cut this out of his diet.
  • He began sharing videos of himself working out in the gym. In July, he posted a video of himself working out, captioning it “down 80 pounds from a whopping 363 and still going strong.”

Action has been self-isolating in his home in Brooklyn, New York, during the coronavirus pandemic

Action says that during the pandemic, he has been cooking a lot because of it.

He says some of the dishes he makes are fancier than others, but he makes them with love so they turn out pretty delicious.

Because he has been a musician and also a chef, Action knows that it’s been these two industries that have been very hurt by the coronavirus pandemic to the point where he had to cancel tours.

These he knows full well can be pretty crippling for an artist.

Even despite all these, he still had a new album on the horizon.

It’s an LP called Only for Dolphins.

It’s a pity that Action can’t share his meals like he has been able to share his new record.

Many find food hard to come by in the pandemic and many food services have had to close.

For Bronson, he misses going to his favorite restaurants, in fact, he says “I miss going to every single place.

I hate that I can’t just walk in and get something whenever I want.

I hate that other people can’t.”

But for now, at least he loves cooking and food, so he finds a lot of solace in his kitchen at home.

Look at 5 things that Bronson has cooked lately that have kept him so happy and healthy

1) Childhood meals

He says each day he tries to make something that he used to eat from his childhood days because they make him feel good.

One day he made ‘tennis-racket’ pasta with broccoli florets and some olive oil, garlic, and some crushed chilies all mixed together.

Doesn’t it sound delicious and so healthy and that’s literally what he had to eat in his childhood days right there?

His mom would make that for him a lot of times.

He reckons it’s the go-to dish when you don’t have much in the way of a lot of food left in the panty.

He says he just slices the garlic up, lets it fry up with the olive oil and chilies, allowing the olive oil to soak up into the garlic so it becomes soft.

All you do then is boil the pasta in very salted water, throwing in the broccoli florets, after draining them, at the end.

Leave just a bit of water left to throw into the whole pot and stir it up with some salt.

He says he has also been making a lot of bread, and even though he knows a lot of people choose sourdough bread to eat, he loves focaccia bread, gorgeous, fluffy, delicious focaccia.

He says it makes him feel so happy, but in general, baking makes him feel happy.

It takes him back to his childhood.

2) Olive Oil

Action loves olive oil and a year ago or so, a friend of his who is the top oleologist in the country; in fact, the top guy in the USA for olive oil, gave him beautiful Biancolilla olive oil from Sicily.

He tries olive oil also from many countries but can’t resist the freshest olive oil from the fresh harvests that come up.

He says he likes to use his olive oil seasonally.

And he knows how good it is for your health.

It’s the good fat that he likes to promote, the good, heart-healthy fat.

He has seen how the people from the Mediterranean and areas where people are heavy on olives live long, healthy lives.

3) Octopus

How he loves octopus.

Active says he loves to roast it, cutting all the tentacles off and laying it down, making a carpaccio with some of them.

He also enjoys grilling them over some hardwood.

Another way he uses octopus is by making an octopus salad with tostadas.

He says the traditional way to prepare octopus is for you to bake it at 330-degrees for two hours.

It should be covered with tin foil, to which a couple of gloves of garlic have been added along with a dousing of olive oil.

He says one thing that is worth repeating when you do the octopus this way is you have to add one wine cork in there.

He is not sure why, but he says the cork somehow enzymatically reacts with whatever’s going on in the meal, softening up the octopus without having to throw it on the ground and beat it- no rubber there.

Then just wait until you take it out and see how delicious it is.

It is up to you then if you want to either grill it or you could slice it up real nice and make a nice ceviche with it.

There are endless things to do with delicious octopus.

4) Green juice

Action says he drinks green juice each and every day.

He says he’s getting used to the flavor and starting to really enjoy it.

In the past, he didn’t like to drink it because of the grassy sweetness taste.

But he says, if you balance it out with the right flavors, and use all the right greens, like celery and ginger for instance, and drink it freezing cold; he says it ends up being delicious, refreshing, and very healthy.

He usually makes himself a massive glass, but you can make yours smaller if you like.

How he makes it is he takes 40 oz. of cold-pressed kale, plus cold-pressed celery, cold-pressed ginger, and cold-pressed green apple [4].

He swears by this each morning – when he downs this he knows he’s doing the right thing!

He says being a chef and a lover of food makes it both easier and harder for him to eat healthily.

Healthy foods are the best foods to eat but the bests foods are not the healthy ones!

So you have to figure out how to jazz up things that.

Take for instance chicken cutlets.

They are not so healthy, but also quite healthy, it could swing either way.

So what Action does to make them healthier is he will take egg-white and not the entire egg, and use the egg-white to make the cutlets crispier – and healthier!

5) Colombian soups

Action says just about every evening he likes to cook something elaborate.

He has a Colombian girlfriend, so he likes to make plenty of Latin delicacies, such as pepper steaks.

Of course, he always loves to add bread with it.

But he doesn’t only cook for his girlfriend.

He and she have a son, too, and he cooks for him too.

They have introduced plenty of fruit for him and they let him try out sopita too, which is a Colombian soup.

Action says he makes a lot of Sancocho as well and they make a lot of a Columbian all-in-one-pot type of soup.

He adds three different types of potatoes in it, with corn, yucca, chicken, cilantro – the whole toot.

It’s because, for him, cooking is instant gratification.

And usually, it’s because most people like what he has made – seeing their eyes light up with joy at what he has cooked up makes him glad.

His diet is very important to him

He has had his share of medical problems that he says he “gave himself”, such as prediabetes, eczema, asthma [5].

He also always battled with portion control when it came to food.

“If I made something that was a big, round dish, I would eat the big, round dish. I wouldn’t just have one piece. It’s all diet, you have to just eat clean, no cheating, no bullshit, just eat clean”.

He says there are no tricks, you just have to make it as good as it can taste and you must like veggies, otherwise you find yourself eating just for nutrition and finding no joy in what you eat.

He says he eats a lot of vegetables – broccoli he loves.

And for carbs, he says he likes to eat wild rice.

He says lots of things that are high in proteins as far as vegetables go, he likes to eat.

He says he likes just about every vegetable.

He likes mixing them up as much as he can, to keep his waist slim and trim.

And he says he has been very strict.

And if he veers off a bit, like when he made an ice-cream for his new album Only For Dolphins and he tasted the ice-cream for the flavor, etc., he said he felt he was going to add on all his weight back after that!

Does he take supplements?

He says he did start to use them for some of his pre-workouts just to see if he would feel any different, but other than that, nothing.

He says his power drink for the gym is natural blueberries with almond milk shaken up together.

“As long as I can capture my health and keep right, make sure that I’m right, we’ll be good and move forward.”

Conclusion

He was interviewed in early September 2020, after coming off the elliptical machine, where he had sweated through 10 miles in a quid 45 minutes.

Then he was going to do a cardio session.

If you go to his Instagram, you will see him do 110 pushups.

Many people have spent the coronavirus quarantine time forgetting about their fitness routines and putting on weight, but not Action Bronson.

He went the other way.

He started in 2020, weighing in at 360 pounds plus and.

Just look at what he has achieved because he was so determined!

He has transformed himself, focusing mainly on his health this time and we can clearly see he is a winner!

Action Bronson says the key to success is to keep your eye on the prize and not to let yourself fall down. Despite his fantastic weight loss, you can see he has not lost his appetite for Life.

Frequently Asked Questions about Action Bronson (FAQs)

What was Action’s first job in New York?

He was 15, working at Key Foods, stocking the shelves. He loved the fact that you could go to the deli and have them make you a sandwich, for which you didn’t have to pay.

Also, he had a girlfriend who worked there which he found pretty cool.

What’s his best meal he has ever eaten in New York?

Even though he claims to have amazing meals every day in the city, his greatest meal has been at a place called Marea on Central Park. Even though the chef and he haven’t cooked together yet, he says they will.

What’s Action Bronson’s worth?

He has a net worth of $10 million dollars – this all comes from his many talents such as his work on TV, his chef and food talents, and as a musician.

Which cities of the world are his favorites to eat out at?

Paris and Copenhagen are his favorites. When in the UK he will go straight to East London where he loves to indulge in the earthy delights.

Is there a workout plan of Action Bronson for fans to follow?

Want to see his workout routine and diet plan. Check it out here.

What is Action Bronson’s height and weight?

He towers in at 6ft 4ins, which is equal to 1.84m. After his weight loss, he weighs in at around 204lb or 86kg.