The Intense Regimen Behind Ethan Suplee's Life-Changing Transformation

If you saw "Remember the Titans," you'll remember actor Ethan Suplee as offensive lineman Louie Lastik. Although offensive linemen are typically large to protect their quarterback, Suplee was the heaviest he had ever been. In fact, he had to weigh himself using a freight scale at a shipping center because the scale at his addiction treatment center couldn't accommodate his size. At the age of 24, he would weigh 536 and have congestive heart failure.

It would take a reunion in 2001 with a crush from his teenage years that would inspire him to reconsider his relationship with his health and body. After dating her for a year, his weight loss journey began.

"I became, for the first time in my life, kind of interested in the future and having experiences with her," Suplee told People. "Like spending a day walking around a museum or going on a trip or hiking that I just wasn't physically able to do."

Fast-forward to almost 20 years later, when he had married his inspiration, Brandy Lewis, and they would have four children together. Suplee also lost 250 pounds. His successful weight loss journey didn't involve fad diets, liposuction, or Ozempic, but instead relied on exercise and eating healthy.

After starring in "My Name is Earl," Suplee started cycling. Not just a one-hour spin class, but hardcore cycling. He told Entertainment Weekly that he would ride his bike six to eight hours a day, six days a week. Cycling would shred him down to 9% body fat, and he weighed 220 pounds.

You can burn 300 calories an hour cycling at an easy-to-moderate pace, and you can burn more if you're on hilly terrain or ride at a faster clip. Even if Suplee rode easy for six hours a day at an easy pace, he'd burn 1,800 calories at a minimum. Cycling that long more than likely helped him gain a bit of muscle, which could help fire his metabolism.

That much cycling proved to be too much. His casting directors turned him away for being too thin, and his wife persuaded him to moderate his obsession with cycling. "Hey, idiot, you can't retire and ride bicycles," she said. "You have to go get a job." Suplee landed a role on Hulu's "Chance," where he would relax some of his dietary restrictions and begin martial arts and lifting weights.

Despite Suplee losing a lot of weight while cycling, he said in his podcast, American Glutton, that he didn't have a hint of a six-pack. He turned to strength training (here's a benefit of strength training that might surprise you). Suplee's Instagram evolved in 2019 from promotions about his acting work to fitspo. By 2020, he was seriously jacked.

Suplee isn't concerned about maxing his lifts. Instead, he's focused on building muscle, which means adding more weight, reps, or sets so his body is continually challenged. You don't need a ton of time but dedication. Suplee lifts weights for an hour six days a week with maybe 20 minutes of cardio. He shared with Men's Health his push-day workout that includes mostly chest exercises.

After a short warmup, Suplee will do three sets of 10 reps of dumbbell flys on an incline, followed by a low bench press on a machine for three sets of 10. If you have access to a cable machine, try three sets of 10 cable scoops, where you start with your arms low and scoop them forward to shoulder height. Add dumbbell pullovers and skullcrusher holds to fire your triceps.

Suplee had a tough relationship with food growing up, sneaking in food while his grandparents tried to restrict his eating habits. He'd secretly binge on food from catering tables from his film and TV sets. "I had this idea that food was something that people didn't want me to have, so if I wanted to have more, I needed to do it privately," he said on the first episode of his podcast, American Glutton.

He got stuck in a weight loss cycle while trying many types of diet trends (here's the damage of yo-yo dieting on your body). Suplee had followed a keto diet until he came across a TED Talk by Mike Israetel, which focused on how much food you eat and the quality of your diet. Rather than obsess over carbs, Israetel advocates a more balanced approach to eating. "I began tracking what I was putting in my body and introduced carbs back into my diet," Suplee told Today. "I started eating what I wanted, but in portions that were appropriate for my body."

This approach would have Suplee binge less and see food as fuel for his body. He allows himself a cup of rice, potatoes, or pasta a day but keeps his diet lower in fat and higher in protein. His body transformation later became less about numbers on a scale but about achieving goals such as visible abs. By January 2021, he had reached his goal of having visible abs, posting his first shirtless photo on Instagram as part of a photo shoot for Men's Health.

Suplee's 500-pound body had his skin significantly stretched, and his dramatic weight loss left him with a lot of loose skin. He told Men's Health that paparazzi would use photos of him as bad examples of dramatic weight loss. Losing more than 100 pounds requires surgical procedures to remove the excess skin and tissue, according to a 2010 article in Missouri Medicine. The excess skin folds can develop bacterial or fungal infections, and a heavy flap of skin can cause significant pain. Some people might have an apron of skin that can drape to the knees.

Suplee needed two surgeries to remove his excess skin. "Skin is elastic by design, however it can also grow quite large," he said on Instagram. "Once it has grown large, not merely being stretched, there is no way to shrink it. The human body cannot catabolize skin."

Despite the surgeries, he still shows on his Instagram that there is still some loose skin on his body. You can even see some of the scars from his surgeries.

One of the issues Suplee says he'd encountered was finding a way out of "diet mode" and finding a way to maintain his weight. On his American Glutton podcast, he talked with obesity specialist Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, who outlined the problem with weight loss plateaus and the need to take breaks from dieting while trying to lose weight. Suplee said he'd get anxious about adding a little more calories back into his diet for fear of gaining the weight back.

(Read what happens to your body when you lose weight too quickly.)

Suplee also struggled with changing to a low-fat diet. He said he struggled to go off keto because he had gained eight pounds in a few days. However, a week later, he noticed those eight pounds coming off and then several more. Even though the weight loss was slower, he noticed it was mostly fat loss.

Once he reached his weight and physical goals, he found it challenging not to measure pounds, inches, or body fat. "I'm trying now to learn to live in, and be happy with, the maintenance period," he told Men's Health. He enjoys going out to dinner with family and savoring each bite without guilt or goal.

Suplee's maintenance mode also keeps his wife happy. "Brandy's been with me through very, very extreme miserable diets where I was eating like 400 calories a day and wasn't such a pleasant person," he told Today. "I have the energy to do things now. Life is so much better."