By his estimate, former "Boy Meets World" actor Ethan Suplee has gained and lost almost 1,000 pounds in his lifetime, but this time, he's staying in shape for good.
Suplee, whom audiences might recognize from "My Name Is Earl" and "American History X," weighed 530 pounds at his heaviest and 220 pounds at his lightest, but now is resting comfortably at 265.
His goal, he explained in the most recent episode of his podcast, American Glutton, is to be able to take a photograph with a clearly-chiseled six-pack.
"I'm almost only [lifting] weights now. I do about a half an hour to 45 minutes of cardio a day and even that ... I just want abs," he said. "For me it's very important to have a goal -- have a physical goal."
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Suplee, 43, shared that he has always struggled with his weight, and was first put on a diet by his father when he was 10 years old. After that, he gained and lost hundreds of pounds for years. As a young man, he regularly purchased two seats so that he could comfortably fly on airplanes, and his friend, actor Kevin Connolly, recalled struggling to go to restaurants with Suplee, because he was never comfortable in restaurant booths. Complicating matters, Suplee said, was that he simultaneously abused drugs and alcohol. He got sober in 2002.
"[Dieting] is so similar to drugs and alcohol and so different, because if you want to get sober, you stop drinking, you stop doing drugs and you're sober. And you just stay away from them. You cannot do that with food," he said in the first episode of his podcast. "There was a lot of ... time spent on all the diets from 2002 basically to today: the Blood Type Diet, Fit for Life, South Beach Diet, the Zone Diet, Atkins and then later it was keto and paleo and all these things. Intermittent fasting."
Although he said that being larger was almost helpful with his career -- he weighed about 400 pounds at the end of "My Name Is Earl" -- he's so focused on getting in shape these days that he doesn't even allow himself to have a cheat meal. His biggest splurge lately? At Thanksgiving, he let himself have a taste of his daughter's homemade pie and a bite of stuffing.
Now at 14% body fat and strictly monitoring the amount of protein and carbohydrates he consumes every day, Suplee said he'll relax a bit once he gets the muscle definition for which he's aiming.
"I'm just following what the bodybuilders do now. I'm gonna get my abs and then I'm done," he said. "I'm gonna be a normal 15% body fat human being for awhile."
