Jelly Roll Announces His Latest Venture: the ‘Losers Run Club’

The country-rap star has a goal to run a half marathon later this year.

Country-rap superstar Jelly Roll has been inspiring fans with his weight loss journey and health transformation over the past few years, and after successfully completing his first 5K last May at the 2 Bears 5K in Los Angeles, he just kept going. He got the racing bug, and immediately set a new goal of running a half marathon in fall 2025.

REPOST: Original Article by Abby Carney of Runner's World Mag

Original Article

THE STORY BEHIND LOSER'S RUN CLUB

Now, the performing artist, whose offstage name is Jason Bradley DeFord, is launching a new run club called Jelly Roll’s Losers Run Club. He announced the endeavor on TikTok, saying, “I believe that we can create huge change right here. I believe that a group of people can come together right now and encourage each other to actually become what they've been dreaming they can be.”

Jelly Roll is teaming up with Strava and starting a Facebook group to offer others the same kind of support, guidance, community, and non-judgment that he credits with his own ability to stick with it and cross the finish line for the first time.

Ultrarunner Matthew Johnson—who recently ran the entire state of Texas in 17 days—was tapped to create a Couch to 5K-style programming, one geared towards total beginners, and another intermediate plan. Jelly Roll’s nutrition coach, Ian Larios, will also be on board to help members with training and lifestyle tips, along with diet and exercise guidance.

The singer, who has lost over 200 pounds since he began his fitness journey, added that it’s totally cool to join the club if you’re a walker. “We use the word ‘run’ loose here,” he said. “Y'all, I clearly walked my first 5K.”

His goal is to create an inclusive, encouraging environment, and while it hasn’t always been easy to stay positive or be so visible and vocal while making these changes in his own life, he continues to put himself out there to give others hope. On a December episode of his wife Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast, he said, “I think that people that become as big as I became, when they lose the weight, they're kind of ashamed.”

“They’re so ashamed that they go and hide and lose the weight,” he continued, “and then they come back out, and they don’t really know how to interact with the world, looking different or feeling different, you know? And they kind of got to find their whole new way. I wanted to lose it in front of everybody. I wanted to talk about it … This is constantly what I’m putting in the air because I want to bring people along with me.”

With Jelly Roll’s Losers Run Club, he aims to “inspire change and belief in community,” by creating “somewhere you can go and feel judgment free when you’re trying to figure this thing out,” he said.

“I know how rough it was at first and how embarrassed I was to just be sucking snot in there every time I walked down the driveway,” he continued, “but it felt so good to have friends and people behind me telling me I was doing the right thing, and people cheering for me when I went and walked my first 5K.”

After that first race, Jelly Roll continued working out and monitoring his nutrition, and at a pre-Super Bowl party last week, he told E! News that he’d recently climbed a mountain in Arizona. “There is no way that would have been possible beforehand,” he said, “so it’s great to see that progress, and we still are going.”

For Jelly Roll, the next big thing is crossing 13.1 miles off his list—and hopefully becoming a Men’s Health cover star by March of 2026—but in the meantime, he aims to run a few more 5Ks with the Jelly Roll’s Losers Run Club.

He ended his announcement encouraging his fans by saying, “Can’t even begin to describe to people how much better and more mentally focused I am. I am more clear headed, I am more energetic, I am more happy—in life, in general—now that I’m eating healthy, exercising, cold, plunging. It’s possible, y’all, and it’s not overwhelming.”