In 2008, Louisiana native Tim McGraw decided to drop alcohol. However, he credits his wife, Faith Hill, with saving his life. “I would have partied too hard,” he told People. “Faith saved my life in a lot of ways — from myself more than anything. I can go down a dark road sometimes, when you’re not feeling good about yourself, and she pulls me out. My wife makes me a better man.”
The alcohol cleanse also improved Tim’s physical appearance dramatically. He ended up dropping 40 pounds within two years. “It wasn’t like I was trying to lose 40 pounds, I was just wanting to get healthy,” McGraw said. “For me, it is more about feeling good and being where I want to be physically and on stage. When I am on stage in 98 degrees out there, you want to feel good. And my show isn’t stand out there and not move around.”
Suprisingly, his concert routine used to involve plenty of booze. McGraw would always have several drinks before taking the stage. “It was exactly my process,” he added. “Basically, I am an unsure, self-conscious, shy person. That is how I started — even when I was in college, before I would get on stage, I would start drinking. I would start drinking to stop shaking. It was a pattern for me, for sure.”
It was not only his wife that urged him to drop the bottle, “people said things,” McGraw revealed. “It wasn’t something that I didn’t know as well. But ultimately, it is really about how I want to be around my kids. I want to be around to see how they grow up. I want to see what their lives become. I want to see what their kids look like.”
McGraw admitted: “I felt like I had to change it. I felt like I had to change my life. And it wasn’t like I was out doing crazy things, it was just that I was drinking too much. You know, some people might look at it and say — hey, I drank twice as much as that. But for me, it adversely affected my life and it was time to change it.”
So what did he replace the booze with? “That’s where my workout program came into play. It took the place of alcohol and it is really important.”
“I do [the] elliptical. Or a treadmill. I will go back and forth between those two. On tour, I do that routine in the morning and in the afternoon, I do a CrossFit routine and all the guys in the band do it with me,” the 50-year-old said. “It is two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Sometimes it gets into three hours because we are loving what we are doing.”
Despite a remarkable change in lifestyle, Tim McGraw is still human. “Days like today — today I won’t have the chance to work out … but I know days are coming where I will have a chance to work out. Or I will go hard for hours knowing there will be days I don’t have a chance to work out. I try to keep it very constant,” he said. The ritual now is to run. Me and a few of the guys in the band — I do my meet and greet and right after the meet and greet — we take off and run for 4 or 5 miles. It is literally timed so I run straight into the dressing room, get ready and hit the stage.”
That is an intense evening, but it has helped McGraw stay away from the drinks. “By the end of it, you are done. You are exhausted. We work out in the morning, have a whole day, then we run and do the show. Our show is pretty high energy. Now at the end of the show, I have worn myself out.”
When he’s not on the road, his routine is a bit different. “I’ll do a 30 minute walk on the treadmill to warm up,” McGraw said. “And swimming, that’s my go-to workout. I mix it up. On the road, it’s more strict, we do CrossFit every afternoon and weights in the morning. But at home, I’ll mix it up, I’ll swim or I’ll lift one day or I’ll run.”
Even though McGraw seems like a health freak, he still eats almost anything he wants. “I am going to eat a cheeseburger today. I love Coke. Not as much as I used to. I like to eat, I like food. That is one of the reasons that I throw that extra hour [of exercise] in,” McGraw joked. “Sometimes you watch it, sometimes you don’t.”
Tim is loving the way he feels. “I think that I am firing pretty much on all cylinders. I’m in a good place all the way around … I feel like I’m better than ever, better than I’ve ever been. I don’t feel like this is as good as it’s going to get … but I am better than ever. And I feel like the best years I have are ahead of me. I want to be ready for them. I want to be ready for whatever life comes at me later on down the road.”
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