Eddie Lacy's trainer changed lifestyle, didn't weigh RB

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- While so much of the offseason focus on Eddie Lacy was about how much weight he lost, the man who trained him apparently never put the Green Bay Packers running back on a scale.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Tony Horton said his work with Lacy was more about a lifestyle change than weight loss.

"We didn't want to do that," Horton said of focusing on weight. "We wanted to take all the pressure off. We just wanted to have a good time, work really hard and eat clean and drink plenty of water. I had him on some supplements that he had never done. He needed some Vitamin D supplements. We just kind of checked what he needed, and he was low on Vitamin D and fiber. He had never taken a supplement before, ever.

"He's a genetic freak. But he took it easy there the last year-and-a-half. Just like anybody else, if you don't pay attention and think you're going to get by on pure genetics, it's going to catch up to you. We just made some dietary shifts, some supplement shifts."

A source told ESPN.com in April that Lacy had lost 15-18 pounds by the time he reported to Green Bay for the offseason program. Horton's estimate matched that number. A source said Tuesday, when the Packers had their first open practice of organized team activities, that Lacy's weight was now "in the 240s," which means he weighed somewhere near 260 pounds last season.

Lacy turned to Horton, creator of the P90X workout, after coach Mike McCarthy called out his star running back for last season's disappointing performance. McCarthy said Lacy "cannot play at the weight he was at."

"We didn't talk about it that much," Horton told the Journal Sentinel. "I don't know what motivated him from day to day. He understood, based on comments that the coach made, based on comments that his supporters and the people around him were saying, knowing that this is the last year of his contract. He knew what was at stake.

"But one thing about Eddie, he's a very humble cat, man. He doesn't boast [or] any of that stuff, man. He's just a really good dude. He just hunkered down and he focused. My guess is that he lost between 15 and 20 pounds. I knew that he had a belly when he started and he didn't have one when he left. And he had much bigger arms, he had much better endurance, his agility had improved tenfold."

Horton said Lacy's weight problem was caused by a poor diet and alcohol use.

"That changed," Horton said. "He didn't know that healthy food could taste good. I cooked for him a lot of days. It's not that hard. You make some egg whites and throw some veggies in there. It's not rocket science. He was excited because he learned that you can make healthy food taste really good, so it's easier for him to be more consistent with it. ... He's from New Orleans, so there's a lot of really rich foods. He grew up with that. He's a crawfish fan.

"He cut way back on the alcohol, which he learned early on that excess alcohol causes testosterone levels to go down. And that's all he needed to hear. It was really impressive to see his level of discipline and hard work and willingness to get way outside of his comfort zone. Because he knew what was at stake. It was important to him, so he did it."

Horton said his work with Lacy was brokered by representatives of TMZ.

"TMZ was [contacting] me about it, about what I thought," Horton said. "Then [Lacy's] folks kind of reached out to me and said, 'Are you for real? Would you really like to help out Eddie?' And I had never done anything quite like that before. Obviously I've sold a lot of DVDs and worked with a lot of folks in the military and the Pentagon, and I've worked with athletes before, but never sort of a one-on-one like that where we actually got to hang out and spend almost two months together."

Horton's training with Lacy took place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and in Los Angeles, and the regimen was not shaped by any input or guidance from the Packers.

It's unclear whether Horton will continue to work with Lacy now that he's back in Green Bay.

"My only concern was that after we parted, being up in Green Bay with a lot of downtime, the trick is always how do you keep those good habits intact if a guy like me is not around," Horton said.