Jax Taylor | Fitness Transformation

Jax Taylor is thankful for Internet trolls. In February 2017, the Vanderpump Rules star was watching his best friend Tom Schwartz’s bachelor party on TV from his West Hollywood apartment with his then-girlfriend (now fiancée) Brittany Cartwright. On the show, Taylor, Schwartz, and Tom Sandoval were dressed in drag on a trip to New Orleans. But it wasn’t the Twitter mentions about his magenta bob wig that caught his attention. What stood out were the remarks about his weight. “Man, you got fat,” one viewer tweeted. “I'm glad they did it,” Taylor tells Men’s Health. “I thought, ‘Why didn't my friends tell me? Why didn't my own girlfriend tell me this?’ I looked disgusting. I was like a butterball. I was not lean. I didn't have the chiseled look that I used to have. I was, like, this has got to stop.” ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW image BRAVO Taylor, a 6-foot-tall former model weighed 175 pounds for most of his adult life. But by the time he saw himself on-screen that day, he was at his heaviest weight, tipping the scales at 235. Taylor, now 39, is preparing for his own wedding to Cartwright by getting healthier both mentally and physically. It’s the best he’s felt after a decade of an indulgent party lifestyle, personal tragedy, and the rigorous weight demands of the modeling industry. "I looked disgusting. I was like a butterball." At 21, Taylor’s fit physique caught the eye of a modeling scout during a grocery shopping trip with his mom in his home state of Michigan. He was known then as Jason Cauchi (his real name), and wasn’t immediately convinced he should trade in his hockey jerseys for high fashion. But $500 for one Kmart shoot a week sold him on the idea. image Joggers ($50) by Under Armour. KATHRYN WIRSING Photographer Jun Pino shot Taylor for his first shoot ever in Detroit. "Although it was his first, I kind of knew he was already a star in the making," Pino says. "He already knew how to work the camera and understood what I was going for. This particular shoot was to get him noticed by Abercrombie and Fitch, so he could model for them." Eventually Taylor did. Within two years, Taylor signed with Ford Models, and soon he was walking the runways from Miami to Milan for the biggest fashion designers in the industry. For runway shows, he was pressured to slim down for a more editorial look, which is thinner than his naturally athletic build. “I go to Dolce and Gabbana to try the pants on, and they said, ‘Sorry we liked you, but you're too big,” Taylor says. “I'm thinking to myself, ‘I can't fit into the clothes, but I'm not fat.’ They're, like, messing with my head. They're, like, you're not good enough, but yet you are. It was just messy.” From 2002 to 2010, Taylor traveled back and forth from Europe to New York City, where he lived in an apartment with four other male models — including Channing Tatum. He says his body was “shredded,” but admits he didn’t achieve his look in a healthy way. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW image JUN PINO “I was getting to the point where I was eating once a day, and I'm living in New York City walking around everywhere, so I was constantly losing weight,” Taylor says. “When you're always on the go, you forget to eat sometimes.” Taylor says he never struggled with an eating disorder, but he was surrounded by male and female models who did. “There were guys and girls eating cotton balls to stay full,” he says. “They would stuff their mouth full of cotton balls so they wouldn't get hungry.” “It was just a mind fuck,” Taylor continues. “I'm from Michigan, I do photo shoots for Kmart. To go to Miami doing swim week and Abercrombie was a whole different ball game. I'm, like, ‘Why are guys running around naked with a football?’ ‘What does it have to do with clothes?’ Here this is my dream job, but, shit, at home I come from a conservative family, and my dad is going to fucking flip. But it's Abercrombie. It was a big deal, so I'm doing it.” Taylor modeled from age 21 to 31. But after a decade, he realized the pressure wasn’t paying off. “I never had any money, because there was no union,” he says. “I was, like, forget all of this shit. I'm not good enough. I'm not going to be skinny and be like these girls and guys walking around the town. I'm not doing it. Put me on the plane and send me home. Fuck you guys.” Instead of going back to Michigan, though, Taylor went to California with a woman he was dating at the time. That relationship ended, and he then started dating Stassi Schroeder, a waitress at Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant SUR in West Hollywood. Vanderpump was launching a Bravo reality series centered around her employees, and the Real Housewife asked Taylor to also join the cast. Vanderpump Rules premiered in 2013 and became an instant success. image JUN PINO “When I started the show, I took a back seat on the gym,” Taylor says. “I looked great because I was still coming off of the modeling, but the show turned into so much work. We're filming all day. We're also partying all of the time. We're drinking all of the time. I didn't have the time to go to the gym.” Fast forward a few seasons in to when Taylor turned 35, and his weight peaked. He gained a total of 60 pounds in four years, and found himself dialing a delivery service to bring junk food right to his doorstep. “I was eating more crap than I was working out,” Taylor says. “Postmates came out. I can order Doritos from my couch? Making a Murderer marathon is on? I'm not getting off of this couch. I'm going to eat everything in sight. Then you wake up and you're like, ‘What is that?’ That's my belly.” Desperate to lose the weight, Taylor says he made the mistake of turning to “steroid adjacent” supplements. “I wasn't literally shooting up with a needle. Believe it or not, I'm scared of needles,” Taylor says, looking down at the tattoos covering both of his arms. “It was pills. But I was taking so much — my hormone level was out of control. It was making me aggressive. I was getting bulky, but I was getting hulky bulky.” Taylor developed gynecomastia, which causes swelling of the breast tissue, a common side effect of steroid use. He had surgery to remove the masses, which was documented on Vanderpump Rules. “I was petrified,” Taylor says. “I'm, like, ‘Oh my god, this is cancer.’ You get a lump in a guy’s chest, it’s a big deal. I'm scared. But they did the test, and said it was a hormonal thing.” Taylor ditched the supplements and decided to go back to old-fashioned exercise and healthy eating, but found little motivation. On the show, it was revealed he cheated on Cartwright with a fellow SUR employee, and that his father Ronald Cauchi was battling esophageal cancer. Then, in December, as Taylor and Cartwright were driving to dinner in Kentucky — just days before traveling to Florida for Christmas — he got the worst news of his life. image GETTY IMAGESMATT WINKELMEYER “I get a phone call over speaker and it was my mom bawling her eyes out,” Taylor says. “She's, like, ‘Your father is dead.’ I pulled the car over. I collapsed. I didn't know how to deal. I was on the way to see him the next day. I fell on the ground in the middle of the highway. I threw my phone on the highway. I was convulsing and everything. I was freaking out. I didn't know what to do. My life flashed. My best friend died.” Cartwright took the wheel and drove the rest of the way. But his father’s death sparked a downward spiral. “I was in a deep rut,” Taylor says. “I was literally going to lock myself in a room and do enough drugs to hurt myself.” But before Taylor could follow through, Cartwright stepped in once again. “Brittany was, like, ‘I understand where you're coming from. I can't imagine what you're going through, but can you try something?’” Taylor says. Cartwright then encouraged Taylor to get a medical marijuana card to smoke weed in the hopes that the high will help keep him relaxed. “I was literally going to lock myself in a room and do enough drugs to hurt myself.” image JAX TAYLOR “I tried it and it changed my life,” Taylor says. “I said, ‘You know what? I'm not going to hurt myself. I'm not going to drink. I'm going to flip this around and make my dad proud. I'm going to go to the gym. We're going to start some businesses. We're going to move up.’” ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW Cartwright also introduced Taylor to the LIT Method, which is an LA-based gym that offers group classes focused on low impact training and high intensity workouts. Taylor takes LIT Method classes in the mornings, and lifts weights at Crunch Gym in the evenings. He says he works out twice a day for up to five days a week, and often smokes weed beforehand. “I'm not so on edge, so I have a really good workout,” he says. “You just zone out.” Integrative cannabis physician Dr. June Chin told Men’s Health in April that cannabis can be taken “during the training season to help recover, ease pain, and push to the next level” (provided an athlete isn't injured or at risk of hurting themselves). Taylor’s eating regimen has also gotten better. He no longer gets Doritos delivered and instead sticks to turkey club sandwiches, chicken, steak, and potatoes. After a year of working out and eating healthier, Taylor has dropped 42 pounds and is down to 193. His mental health and relationship have also improved. In fact, Taylor says the couple attends premarital counseling once a month together in preparation for their next milestone. image JAX TAYLOR Cartwright says she is “very, very proud” of the changes her fiancé has made. “He impresses me every single day,” she says. “Not only by going to the gym and making healthier choices, but by seeing how happy and confident he is now. He has helped me in so many ways to stick to my own gym classes, and being a great gym partner. We diet together and we have amazing cheat meals together. I think he looks so handsome and his dedication to me and to change is so sexy!” Taylor and Cartwright are set to marry in the summer of 2019 at The Kentucky Castle in Versailles, Kentucky. Taylor confirms his friends and cast mates Schwartz and Sandoval will be groomsmen. After the wedding, Taylor plans to have kids with Cartwright — at least two, he says. “I'm so determined to be the best father that I can possibly be — because I really want to be at every PTA meeting, every soccer practice, every ballerina class. My dad was there,” he says. “I've done everything I've wanted to do, partied my brains out, traveled the world. It’s time to start the next stage in my life.” image KATHRYN WIRSING HERE’S WHAT JAX TAYLOR EATS IN A TYPICAL DAY: Morning: Oatmeal with 310 Nutrition protein powder sprinkled on top Throughout the day: Three 310 Nutrition shakes Two Juice Plus capsules Rotisserie chicken with brown rice Dinner: Chicken or steak Small amounts of alcohol on occasion (“two sips,” Taylor says)