American Idol’s favorite Wade Kota opens with his 140 lb. Weight loss will be followed by fatigue and constant tiredness
It was 2019 and Wade Kota was at the top of his game.
As a top-five finalist in the 17th season of American Idol, everyone seemed to be talking about a boy with an emotional voice and a mighty stature. But then, Kota heard something that shook his core.
“There was a podcast where someone was talking about American Idol the night before and talking about how incredible my performance was,” Kota, 30, recalls during a recent interview with People. “And then that guy says, ‘We love you, Wade, but lose 150 pounds or you’re going to die.'”
In that anonymous podcast, Kota remembers the thought that this faceless man might be right. Somehow, he found himself in one of the highest-rated singing competition programs on television at the same time that he weighed more than him.
And deep down, Kota knew that most of the fans who sent him messages during his American Idol just wanted the best for him. But those were other messages, no matter how hateful the messages, they could not get out of his mind.
“Yeah, I had to kill myself and there were a lot of messages telling me I was too fat for TV,” Koda says quietly. “That’s what I really got.”
So, Kota voted himself out of the show and as he seemed to be ready to start this musical career he had always imagined, he also found himself going into the depths of depression.
“I stopped eating,” says Kota, who remembers the days when he drank six packs of Coca-Cola a day. “I stopped taking care of myself.”
Admittedly, Kota lived a long time with the reality of his heredity. The Italian boy in Arizona was raised in poverty and pasta because his biological father abused his mother both physically and mentally.
“He beat my mother several times,” Kota recalls. “He molested my sister. He molested my brother. He went to prison when I was 5 years old.” He stops. “Food became something I could control.”
But in 2019, Kota appeared to be ready to change itself. And he was not alone.
Kota’s mother had been suffering from diabetes since she was pregnant with him and she too was at a stage where she needed to control her weight. So, mother and child started their journey towards a healthy lifestyle together.
Kota stopped drinking soda and removed all sugars, started fasting occasionally and started following the Keto lifestyle and started losing weight.
“I literally had 50-gallon trash bags that I filled with all my big clothes,” he recalls. “I said to myself, ‘I’m giving it up because I’ll never be here again.’ I didn’t want to give up. I just wanted to get rid of it. “
To date, Cota has lost a total of 140 lbs.
“I feel so good and look so good and I’m so confident and I’m writing more than ever,” he says with a smile, admitting he’d like to lose another 50 pounds. “I’m in a very good place.”
Weight loss will be followed by fatigue and constant tiredness.
“I’m not good at basketball,” laughs Kota, who is set to release his new album Love I Like I’m Dead this summer. “I’m really, really bad, but it makes me run more because I have to get my own rebound. I probably shoot 50 half-court shots. And every time, it goes up or to the right. And then, I have to run. After that and that’s awful! ” He laughs. “But now it’s like I’m doing it on purpose because it makes me run.”
Another part of Kota’s weight loss journey that he didn’t expect was to lose more than 140 pounds. Will affect his growing voice.
“Singing has become so much easier now because I can’t breathe,” he explains. “I can keep long notes. I think my voice has grown a lot since I was heavier than I am. I feel great.”
