HGTV's Ben Napier shows off his dramatic 55-pound weight loss
'Home Town' star says having first child inspired him
'Home Town' star says having first child inspired him
'Home Town' star says having first child inspired him
Ben Napier, host of "," is known as "Big" to his . At 6 feet 6 inches tall, the -based woodworker towers over his other half, who is 5 feet 5 inches tall. His large build sometimes seems better suited for a football player than a small-town shop owner. So, as the show returns for a third season this week, fans might be surprised to see that "Big" Ben is a bit slimmer than when we saw him last.
"I've lost 55 pounds since last year," Napier tells CountryLiving.com. "Over the course of season 3, I dropped about 35 pounds, so you'll see it happening."
Napier's weight, which the couple also discussed in , "," will even fluctuate within individual episodes, as some scenes had to be reshot due to logistics like weather.
"We'd have to do an interview about it like two months later, and I was 20 pounds lighter than I was back then," explains Napier, who recently served as a guest blogger focused on men's health for the . "I had to wear the same shirt that I was wearing that day, and suddenly it's too big."
Though he started exercising fairly regularly about eight years ago, Napier says that he got serious about his health in 2018, following the birth of the (who is set to make some appearances in the upcoming episodes).
"Having Helen made me want to be healthier so I could be around a lot longer and see her grow up and see her whole life," Napier says, adding that his maternal grandfather died of a stroke when his mom was just 17 and both his father and his paternal grandfather have had open-heart surgeries.
In addition to cutting carbs and calories and fasting intermittently, Napier's been doing a combination of cardio and weight training.
"He gets up at 4:30 and plays basketball in the backyard every morning," Erin Napier tells Country Living. "I will not complain about it. It's great for his heart — I don't care if it wakes me up."
While she's proud of her husband's health journey, the former stationer still wants him to stay "Big."
"I don't want him to get too skinny," she said. "My favorite thing about him is how I always feel so small and taken care of. I just don't want people calling him 'Slim Ben,' because I didn't sign up for that. But I really call him 'Big' because he's so generous."
"Even down 55 pounds, I'm still 280 pounds," Ben Napier, whose retirement dream is to play Santa Claus at Christmastime, says reassuringly, "So I'm still a lot bigger than the average person."