How Actors Lose Weight for Movie Roles
What’s the actors diet to prepare for movie roles?
There’s no secret that when actors need to get shredded for the movie screen they adopt low calorie diets. Why? Well because low calorie diets work, if you can just battle through them. In fact, one of the first diets I ever did was the shake salad diet. This involved eating a protein shake for breakfast, a protein shake for lunch and a big chicken salad for dinner.
The shake salad diet is a fail proof way to get ripped. That said, you couldn’t pay me enough money to endure the diet for anything longer than a week. Funny enough, I still get asked by people today if I recommend that diet for fat loss. Honestly, I don’t.
Going extremely low in calories works, but you’re not going to lose fat that much faster than a reasonable calorie deficit. So the results of extreme dieting, just plain and simple, aren’t worth the added pain and torture.
This is partly because the law of diminishing returns kicks in, as you drop calories, the rate of fat loss doesn’t drop as much as expected. But worse, with this further reduction in calories, you are more susceptible to muscle loss, drained sex drive and brutal hunger pangs. Not to mention the risk of slipping off your diet and binge eating is considerably higher.
Extreme Dieting vs Aggressive Dieting
If you want to lean down while maintaining muscle and getting that chiseled look like Ryan Reynolds (featured above), then extreme dieting won’t work. Simply, it’s way too catabolic. Instead what you want to do is aggressive dieting. Let me explain:
Let’s say that you are an average male that burns around 2700 calories per day. You could go on an extreme diet and eat only 1200 calories of pretty much just lean protein and veggies. This would put you in a massive 1500 calorie deficit per day allowing you to drop about 3 lbs per week. This is precisely what Matthew Mcconaughey did for Dallas Buyers Club to play an aids victim.
That said, you’re going to be downright starving, your sex drive will plummet and muscle loss will be inevitable. So you really have to ask yourself, is losing fat a little faster worth all those side effects? Obviously not! Well unless you’re a masochist. Or if you’re getting paid millions of dollars to lose weight on a strict deadline.
I prefer an aggressive approach to quick fat loss, but not extreme. I’d recommend capping the calorie deficit at around 700-1000 below maintenance. So in this instance, you’d have an extra 500 calories to work with, brining you from 1200 calories to a much more enjoyable 1700 calories.
These extra calories help immensely
These extra 500 calories will allow you to bump your fat intake up 20g and add an extra 80g of carbs each day. These extra macros would make you much more satisfied, training, sleep and sex drive would improve and you’d experience much better muscle retention.
And guess what, you’re still going to lose plenty of fat. If you wanted to drop 30 lbs, it would take you 15 weeks compared to 10 weeks on the extreme 1200 calorie diet. You might think to yourself, an extra 5 weeks of dieting, that sounds terrible! Well not when you’re eating in a way that is satisfying and enjoyable compared to constantly being on edge and hungry.
What’s more, you’re going to look significantly better with the aggressive approach. This is because you will have maintained more muscle so you would have a more favorable ratio of muscle to fat mass. On top of that, because you took fat loss a little slower, your skin would be tighter, giving your muscles even more definition.
My Aggressive Fat Loss Approach
Since so many people have been asking me for a rapid fat loss protocol, I decided to create the best possible and most enjoyable program for aggressive fat loss. I will say that this isn’t the fastest way to lose body fat. The quickest way to drop body fat is with a protein sparing modified fast (PSMF). Lyle Mcdonald wrote a great book on this type of diet.
That said, I just couldn’t bring myself to write my version of a PSMF. Why? Well because I believe in leading by example and practicing what I preach and I could just never stick to a full blown PSMF. I need my carbs and my fats and I just value my sleep, sanity, sex drive and workout performance way too damn much.
So this is the closest thing to rapid fat loss you can do, without all the pain, torture and sacrificed muscle. So if you want an AGGRESSIVE strategy for dropping body fat and want to get shredded for summer time, then check out my new program today:
