Packers running back Eddie Lacy shown in late season form (left) and in his new, slimmed down physique (right) at a sushi restaurant March 17 in California with fan Jeff Engen. Credit: Journal Sentinel files / Submitted photo

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Coach Mike McCarthy has received promising reports on Eddie Lacy’s off-season plan to shed some weight. We’ve heard about the Packers running back’s workouts with P90X founder Tony Horton in California.

Now comes this photo of Lacy with a fan in California.

Jeff Engen said he met Lacy on March 17 at the Nobu restaurant in Malibu — eating sushi.

"He looked really fit and looked like he lost a lot of weight," Engen wrote in an email to the Journal Sentinel. "Eddie was eating fish, was really friendly and conducting himself as a class act....

"I'm 5-9, 185 pounds and he is much thinner than me," Engen wrote.

The 5-foot-11 Lacy was listed as 234 pounds throughout the season by the Packers, but he looked considerably heavier than that and appeared to run out of gas at times.

McCarthy called out Lacy in his season-ending news conference Jan. 18, saying he "cannot play at the weight that he played at this year."

But McCarthy said at the NFL owners meetings this week that he was confident Lacy was back on track.

"It looks like he's doing good," McCarthy said. "I think it's important that all of these guys as they go through the young part of their careers, he needs to learn from the good and the not-so-good. Everything sounds like it's going well in California."

After his first two seasons in the NFL in which he ran for 2,317 yards and scored 24 touchdowns, Lacy had a forgettable 2015 season, rushing for just 758 yards and scoring five touchdowns.