ETHAN SUPLEE | What It's Like To Lose 300lbs & Adele's Transformation | Modern Wisdom Podcast 184

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   So you were, um,…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      So you were, um, 200 pounds at ten years old, right?

   2. ESEthan Suplee0:03

      Yeah. By 2000, that was 536 pounds. So I don't see why anything you say about my feelings about myself-

   3. CWChris Williamson0:14

      (laughs)

   4. ESEthan Suplee0:14

      ... should be able to alter my feelings about myself, but we've gotten into this space where the group can dictate how people view themselves, and not only that, the group must dictate how people view themselves.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:34

      What's your T-shirt say?

   6. ESEthan Suplee0:37

      Uh, it says, "I killed my clone today."

   7. CWChris Williamson0:40

      What's that a reference to?

   8. ESEthan Suplee0:42

      Um, there's a- there is a, uh, martial arts guy, I- I- I did a television show called Chance with, uh, a fellow countryman of yours, Hugh Laurie, and I played this character where I was like, um, basically my first official badass character. And the- the character was based on a real guy who is actually a military and martial arts instructor. He teaches like the elite military dudes how to fight with knives, like that's his job. And so in playing, in- in meeting him and spending time with him, I trained with him a bunch, and he had this whole philosophy about kill your clone. So every day you meet the clone of yourself from 24 hours in the past, and you have to fight to the death. And if you've improved yourself by 1/1000 of a percent that day, you will kill your clone. So the point is to kill your clone every day. So this shirt is, uh, saying that today I- I did that, I killed my clone.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:52

      That's so sick, man. I'm gassed.

   10. ESEthan Suplee1:54

       (laughs) It hurt. It hurt

   11. CWChris Williamson1:55

       It hurt for today's episode, dude. I've just finished training. I nearly did this podcast without shorts on. I keep on nearly forgetting to put shorts on but I put shorts on, we're here, I've got shorts on. Um, is- what's that guy's name? What's the...

   12. ESEthan Suplee2:09

       Tom Kier. Tom Kier is the real-life guy that I p- he's- the character that I played was based on Tom Kier. Um, if you ever saw a movie called The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, it's about special forces guys who are good with knives. He like created all of that knife work. He's a, he's a true badass dude.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:31

       Fuck, yeah. So is it like Krav Maga type stuff or even more...

   14. ESEthan Suplee2:34

       I think it's even s- a step in- in the more hardcore from Krav Maga.

   15. CWChris Williamson2:39

       When you get more hardcore than Israeli military.

   16. ESEthan Suplee2:43

       You're hard- yeah, you're gnarly.

   17. CWChris Williamson2:43

       That is some serious-

   18. ESEthan Suplee2:46

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson2:46

       ... serious shit. So do you think that's the pivot now for your acting direction, the sort of big, badass, kinda gruff in- it's- it's always in the action film, it's the dude that's got two 50-cal machine guns in each hand, you know, the belts of- of ammunition. Do you reckon that's kinda the pivot direction?

   20. ESEthan Suplee3:06

       This is- this is all the pivot I want to happen. Who knows if it actually happens? But yes, I'm in. Give me two 50-cals and belt-fed machine guns and all of that, and I'm fucking in. Are we allowed to say fucking?

   21. CWChris Williamson3:19

       You can say fucking as much as you want, my friend. Yeah, that would be, because I mean you're not going to do sweet young uncle very well anymore.

   22. ESEthan Suplee3:28

       (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson3:28

       I don't think you can do that.

   24. ESEthan Suplee3:30

       Yeah. I hope not.

   25. CWChris Williamson3:32

       You know?

   26. ESEthan Suplee3:32

       I don't wanna do it. I've done it quite a bit.

   27. CWChris Williamson3:35

       Yeah, you know, like you can't just play the best frie- 'cause he's- who's that guy? Like, oh, it's just- that's just like Uncle Bob in the corner. It's like, hmm, Uncle Bob looks like he wants to kill someone.

   28. ESEthan Suplee3:46

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson3:46

       (laughs)

   30. ESEthan Suplee3:47

       It's what- it's such a weird thing be- too because with acting, I feel like I, uh, I can play that kind of innocent, sweet, kind of dumb buddy or brother very well. And I've done- I've done it a lot. But like as a little kid, I never, uh, physically matched this, but I loved action movies and- and shoot-'em-ups and stuff, you know? So my dream would be for sure to do something like that. Uh, I've- I've not gotten to do it, but I would love to.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Is that right? Does…

   1. ESEthan Suplee15:00

      big guy 'cause I'm comfortable, more comfortable being kind of big." And for, for a year, I did keto, trying to maintain muscle mass, and I would notice through, I would get DEXA scans and notice that like, 30 to 40% of the weight I was losing was lean tissue and I was getting smaller, but my muscle wasn't staying as big. I was losing strength, which was a bummer. So I just got really scientific about it, increased my protein, which in doing that, you can't... it kind of defeats keto.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:35

      Is that right? Does enough protein knock you out with ketosis?

   3. ESEthan Suplee15:38

      Yeah, um, I, I, I eat about 280 grams of protein a day, and the amount of fat that I'd have to eat in order to not have any of the protein go through, um, glucogenesis in the liver w- w- would just be astronomically high and you wouldn't be in a deficit, a caloric deficit. And so y- you know, yes.

   4. CWChris Williamson16:04

      So it's, it's very difficult then to use ketosis to lose weight whilst maintaining muscle-

   5. ESEthan Suplee16:13

      (laughs) .

   6. CWChris Williamson16:13

      ... because the requirement that you have on your fat is proportional to the protein, and if you drop your protein down so much, inevitably your muscles are going to atrophy.

   7. ESEthan Suplee16:22

      I th- uh, listen, if you tried to do keto, I'm sure there's a version of you doing it and not damaging your muscles. You could probably do that. But when you're looking at losing 100 pounds of fat, which is roughly what I wanted to lose, that's just such a long period of time of weight loss that it is gonna be hard to maintain all that muscle mass. So I, I get into these things where people are like, "You're dead wrong about keto." And I'm like, "Look, I'm not knocking keto. Keto, I fucking lost a ton of weight, and keto might be perfectly fine for a person who's fit or who wants to lose a couple pounds and maintain all their muscle. That might work." But when you're talking about doing it for years to lose huge amounts of weight, you're gonna sacrifice lean tissue. You just are-

   8. CWChris Williamson17:19

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ESEthan Suplee17:20

      ... um, without enough protein. And if you raise your protein high enough, (laughs) you're not gonna be in ketosis.

   10. CWChris Williamson17:26

       You gotta have your fat to then keep you to not be knocked out ketosis, which then puts you over the deficit. Okay, yeah.

   11. ESEthan Suplee17:32

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:32

       It's, uh, it's very, I haven't, it's something I haven't done. I remember messing around with it when it became cool, like maybe s- sort of eight years ago and, uh, I have such low fat in my diet all the time, just naturally I don't tend to eat fatty foods, and it, it really didn't agree with me. I don't operate tremendously well, uh, so, but I totally get it as well. Mikhaila Peterson, I was recently on her podcast, and that girl eats beef, salt and water.

   13. ESEthan Suplee17:58

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:59

       She's got the, the maddest diet on the planet and um, a lot of the people that follow her stuff are either on beef, salt and water or some version of keto is kind of like the overarching theme of that-... and a-

   15. ESEthan Suplee18:12

       I would just, uh, my, I, listen, I'm not even against it, I'm not advocating against it. I'm just saying, I would be willing to bet she came to it at a place where it wasn't like, "I need to lose 100 pounds of fat-"

   16. CWChris Williamson18:25

       Yeah.

   17. ESEthan Suplee18:26

       "... and maintain my level of fitness." So, I just think it's like w- uh, you know, if you're going to be doing something that puts you in a deficit for years, you gotta look at what you're, uh, focusing on.

   18. CWChris Williamson18:41

       Mm.

   19. ESEthan Suplee18:41

       That's all. And-

   20. CWChris Williamson18:42

       So what did you, what did you settle on? After all of that, playing around with all different diets, what, what did you settle on to keep the weight loss sustainable?

   21. ESEthan Suplee18:50

       Low fat, high protein, moderate carbs.

   22. CWChris Williamson18:53

       What were your macros or your cals at, around about?

   23. ESEthan Suplee18:56

       Uh, I mean, for maintenance, I'm like 3500 to 4000 calories a day. For maintenance. Uh, my deficit is around 2500, and the first thing I do is go, like, "How do I get 260 grams of protein? 260 to 280 grams of protein today." And then the next thing that I work out is carbohydrates. And it changes, you know, almost month to month it's gonna be different, a little bit. And depending on, you know, if it's my day off, I'll lessen my carbs and increase my fats a little bit. But fat is definitely the, the, the guy getting short-changed. And I will sometimes go so low-fat that I gotta take a handful of omega-3s just to hit my fat markers.

   24. CWChris Williamson19:45

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   25. ESEthan Suplee19:47

       You know?

   26. CWChris Williamson19:47

       I th- I feel like I'm, so I have double cream and coffee on a morning, in a desperate attempt to remember to get some fats in, 'cause if I don't, I'll be so far under and so I think-

   27. ESEthan Suplee19:56

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson19:57

       ... similar to you. So I mean, that, uh, w- without getting sort of super technical into it, A, if three and a half to 4000 cals was maintenance for you, and your deficit was 2500, that's a fairly aggressive-

   29. ESEthan Suplee20:12

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson20:12

       ... cut. That's a pound and a half to two pounds a week.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. ESEthan Suplee30:00

      responsibility over this thing, it's the increasing it. This is what I think about with carnivore folk, and I'm stoked that carnivore works for people too. But when I look at carnivore, I go like, "That's a s- that's an extreme reduction." Be responsible for, uh, beef, salt, and water.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:17

      (laughs)

   3. ESEthan Suplee30:17

      Fine. But eventually, I think you wanna b-... build out on that. So once you kind of get your feet stable and you go, "Okay. This isn't hurting me, I'm not allergic to any of these things, I'm not having an adverse effect, let's dip our toes into vegetables and see how do we feel when we eat red peppers and how do we feel when we eat cucumbers." And if you don't have a bad reaction, you know that those are safe foods and you've now built into your arsenal of things you can be responsible for, and, you know, let's see what happens if we have a bowl of rice and then work out an hour later. How do we feel in the gym? You know what I mean? I think there's levels to all these things. I- I, again, I'm a relativist. So if it works for you-

   4. CWChris Williamson31:05

      Mm-hmm.

   5. ESEthan Suplee31:05

      ... then fucking keep doing it.

   6. CWChris Williamson31:06

      At the end of the day, the only thing that we're bothered about is the results, right? So, okay, so you're saying there might be some people listening, in fact I'm absolutely certain that there will be some people that are like, "I have a lot of weight to lose." A potential good starting point would be this liquid diet. What was the, what was the shakes and then where would you move yourself onto there, and when?

   7. ESEthan Suplee31:26

      I- I think if you have hundreds of pounds to lose, that, uh, that doing something radical and extreme like that isn't such a bad thing. First of all, you have so much stored energy that, um, y- you're not in risk of damaging yourself by going extremely low calorie, right? And also, if the way you and I diet today, if you map it out, you go, like, if you have hundreds of pounds to lose and you're losing them very, very slowly, it's gonna take years and years and years which, I think you do have to confront the fact that if you've gotten to the place of hundreds of pounds of excess stored energy, that you are gonna be looking at something that is a- a lifelong alteration of eating habits. That's fine, but you wanna kind of get t- you wanna get to goals as quickly as possible because you wanna build that foundation that keeps you going, I think. So doing something radical and extreme to start it I have no problem with, and I would advocate to do that again. It's figuring out the usefulness and workability of the next diet when you do start eating again, and the- the problem I kept running into was this kind of belief system that had to go along with any diet I was doing. So it was, you know, gluten is bad and that's the trigger or that's the thing that's causing me to store excess fat so I'm gonna get rid of that. And I- I would just say, like, get rid of those ideas and if you don't like gluten or you have an adverse effect from gluten that is objective, fine, cut gluten out. There's a diet for you. If you don't like fat or you h- have trouble digesting fat or you don't feel good after you eat it, there's a diet for you. If you like fat, there's a diet for you.

   8. CWChris Williamson33:25

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ESEthan Suplee33:25

      But I think it's more important to be aware of what you're actually experiencing versus, you know, somebody selling you on lectins are bad or gluten is bad or, you know, GMOs are bad, or pick your poison. I think there's a- a school of thought that, uh, that would point a finger at any kind of food group, you know, from vegans to carnivores.

   10. CWChris Williamson33:47

       Okay.

   11. ESEthan Suplee33:47

       There's, that spectrum is full of-

   12. CWChris Williamson33:50

       So a- avoid the ideology.

   13. ESEthan Suplee33:52

       I think so.

   14. CWChris Williamson33:52

       Avoid the church of gluten-free or the church of keto or the church of carnivore or the church of whatever it might be, and focus instead on energy balance; what's going in, what's going out, am I losing weight, am I checking the scales regularly, am I tracking my food. Um, what's your streak on MyFitnessPal? What's your longest streak?

   15. ESEthan Suplee34:10

       Oh, man. I, that- that was actually what I used at the beginning because I- I was writing everything down and there was so much math that I- I would write, I would, like, double check my math every day and sometimes it would be wrong and I'd then w- be like-

   16. CWChris Williamson34:27

       Lazy shit.

   17. ESEthan Suplee34:27

       ... completely fucked. Um, I think I had, like, three or four months of check-ins on MyFitnessPal at one point, which was great.

   18. CWChris Williamson34:35

       Yeah. That's a serious one.

   19. ESEthan Suplee34:36

       And I think it does become, you know, in a cut certainly, I write everything down every day still just to make sure. But, like, on maintenance, I- I'm not even really looking. I've learned over the past year and a half or so what that- what that looks like, what it feels like, um. And- and that's the other thing I'd say to anybody who's- who's thinking about going to calories and macros, it is an adjustment. Figuring all this stuff out is an adjustment, but kind of, you kind of get the hang of it real quick. I would also suggest anybody who's doing keto to spend a week writing down their calories. I bet they'd be surprised at how many calories are in a tablespoon of olive oil, you know, and what- what kind of energy that's providing them with.

   20. CWChris Williamson35:28

       Dude, that coffee that I talked about in the morning which is like a shot of double cream in a coffee is like 7% of my daily calories-

   21. ESEthan Suplee35:39

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson35:39

       ... and it's the size of a couple of cubes of sugar. But i- it's- it's mad. So I wanted to ... Oh, f- actually, before I do that, where are you at now? What's weight and body fat at now? Have you got an idea?

   23. ESEthan Suplee35:51

       Yeah. 260, 13% body fat.

   24. CWChris Williamson35:54

       Bro.

   25. ESEthan Suplee35:55

       Which is good. And this is, by the way, uh, with Calipers, I'm at 9%. This is a DEXA scan which I always like to talk about because, um, I just think it's a more hardcore test.

   26. CWChris Williamson36:11

       Is there any residual, um, visceral fat? Is there any sort of long-term, uh, organ- organ sort of fat which is taking more time to get off? Because I was learning today about, um, brown- brown adipose t- is it brown adipose tissue and white adipose tissue?

   27. ESEthan Suplee36:32

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson36:32

       I was literally reading about that this morning so that I could, I could drop that knowledge bomb for you right there. (laughs)

   29. ESEthan Suplee36:36

       Yeah, that, that is, that is an amazing knowledge bomb. Yes, my adipose tissue, uh, I don't know that they're telling me whether it's brown or white in the Dexa scan, but I do know that I am on the high end there. But we're talking not about a huge amount in, i- i- in comparison. Like the adipose tissue, I think I'm at like four pounds or th- three something, which to me I go like, "That's nothing." But if you think about what it is, it's this, uh, very, very thin sheet of fat that's surrounding all your organs. So I don't know if that's just the last place your body takes fat from that I've built it up-

   30. CWChris Williamson37:24

       That's when you know, man.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

      Adele. You've done really well. This is great. You're a role model for people to lose weight." Then there was the reaction that was, um, big girls don't think that just because Adele's lost weight to conform to society's beauty ideals that you need to lose weight as well, you're beautiful too. Then there was the, like, third layer of people that were saying, "How dare these people say that she shouldn't have lost weight. This is ..." And I'm like, this is like Dante's Inferno.

   2. ESEthan Suplee45:27

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:27

      We're just descending through all the layers of hell here. Like, there are certain things that are unarguable facts. Obesity is an all-cause mortality risk. Fact number one.

   4. ESEthan Suplee45:42

      Yeah, full stop.

   5. CWChris Williamson45:43

      You- you die sooner, of everything, if you're fat.

   6. ESEthan Suplee45:47

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:47

      So, anybody that says you, singer, in the public limelight, should sacrifice your health, literally sacrifice your life (laughs) , your mortality, your risk of everything, to be a role model for other people to also shorten their lives, that- that sort of blew my mind. But on the flip side of that, uh, when- especially when I contrasted that with your journey, I'm like, "Wow, there is something going on here between is it because of who you are? Is it because of the industry you're in?" I don't think so. Is it because of your gender? I think it is.

   8. ESEthan Suplee46:26

      Probably.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:26

      I think the v- I think the vast majority of it is that guys have a bigger Overton window, like a- a larger leeway of guys can kind of get real thin, guys can get real fat, and it's kind of just like well you're just still a bloke, you know? There is-

   10. ESEthan Suplee46:42

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson46:42

       There is no beauty standard for men. There's like a hotness standard, but you're supposed to have, like, a long hair coming out your nose that you haven't seen f- once in a while, which gentlemen under the age of 30, these random things are going to begin happening to you where you're-

   12. ESEthan Suplee46:58

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson46:58

       ... just gonna find, like, an elephant hair in the middle of your forehead and ... time's a cruel mistress. Um, like, all this stuff's gonna happen. But you're right, like, there's this- there's still sort of this beauty standard for women, even as you get old. Like Dame Judi Dench, you know, being graceful as she gets towards later age and stuff like that. And I don't know what it is, man. I don't know. What I do know is that I was real disheartened by women's response to Adele.

   14. ESEthan Suplee47:27

       Yeah, me too.

   15. CWChris Williamson47:29

       I-

   16. ESEthan Suplee47:29

       And men, but it's some men too who are-

   17. CWChris Williamson47:31

       Some men.

   18. ESEthan Suplee47:31

       ... you know, male feminists who are like-

   19. CWChris Williamson47:33

       But yeah, man, it's so-

   20. ESEthan Suplee47:34

       ... just looking to please some group by saying-

   21. CWChris Williamson47:37

       They- they were playing-

   22. ESEthan Suplee47:37

       ... the right thing.

   23. CWChris Williamson47:38

       ... the plee- please the women game, yeah, but, like, girls and guys were supportive of you.

   24. ESEthan Suplee47:44

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson47:44

       The vast majority of guys that I saw commenting online were either commenting on women slating Adele or complimenting Adele.

   26. ESEthan Suplee47:52

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson47:53

       But then the girls' side of stuff, there wa- I wasn't seeing much vitriol from men. I was seeing a lot of vitriol from girls. And it's like, hang on a second, are we not supposed to be backing our own team here? Like, you need to gas up the people who you want to do well in life. Like, Adele is an amazing role model for girls. Yes, maybe that makes someone who is overweight uncomfortable at the fact that Adele was showing me that you can be both successful and overweight. But now you have someone who is showing you that if you are overweight, you can be in a healthy range. Not because of society's beauty standards. Forget that. Like, I'm not playing that game. I'm playing the game of you will live longer and by the judgment of her photo, and as you identified yourself, this glow that she had, potentially be happier.

   28. ESEthan Suplee48:47

       Yeah.I, I think that the, I think there's, there can be a lot of things that are true at the same time. Which, for me, uh, there does become a level of subjectivity to health. So, yes, if we are urging towards long-term survival, not being overweight benefits that. Sure. But at the same time, I go like, "What business is it of mine how people choose to live?" You know? So I'm like, you wanna drink, you wanna do drugs, you wanna drive your car too fast, you wanna do reckless things, you, you wanna get coronavirus, I don't really care. Don't fucking mess with me-

   29. CWChris Williamson49:35

       Mm-hmm.

   30. ESEthan Suplee49:35

       ... and don't do unsafe things to me, and we're good. Uh, and I know there is some argument that talks about the burden on healthcare with obesity, that it suddenly does become an effect, uh, larger numbers of people, and I go like, "That's too abstract for me." If we're talking about individuals, how an individual chooses to live doesn't really matter to me, and I won't criticize them. Uh, I've noticed, um, uh, quite a bit recently of young girls who, when I was a kid, uh, you would never see an overweight young girl in kind of a midriff shirt showing her belly. You wouldn't see that. And I see it today, and the, the girls seem to have... I, I choose girls because this is tr- I have four daughters (clears throat) and I'm just more aware of their friends and like what girls are doing than I am with young guys. There is a higher sense of confidence, certainly, or a less of a shame around being overweight, which I think is a good thing, because I don't think... I, I think that it's, for me, there was something about, um, being introverted and, uh, most of my f- eating was, which I do consider to be harming myself, self-harm, was being done privately because I was ashamed of it. And I didn't ever have the confidence in myself to try and change that until I met a girl who didn't seem to care about it at all. And then I went like, "Fuck, I'm worthwhile."
5. 1:00:00 – 1:01:38

   Dude, wives, unfortunately, they…

   1. ESEthan Suplee1:00:00

      a lot of time out there hiking in the hills behind our house. Um, why don't you work on abs?" She says to me. And I'm like, "Oh, abs. Okay. That's interesting. Okay. I'll do that." And it became this intense focus, you know? Um, but she definitely bounces me around, and it was literally just her going, "I bet you could go to the gym for an hour rather than spending five hours hiking around in the hills." And she was right, ultimately.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00:29

      Dude, wives, unfortunately, they just tend to be. Don't ... I mean, I wouldn't-

   3. ESEthan Suplee1:00:34

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

      I wouldn't know. I'm, I'm hopelessly, hopelessly single, which isn't being helped by either this mustache or by lockdown. But, um, it is what it is. Dude, man, this has been awesome. Uh-

   5. ESEthan Suplee1:00:43

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

      I feel like we coulda gone on for- for ever. So you got your podcast, American Glutton.

   7. ESEthan Suplee1:00:48

      American Glutton, which is so much fun. Um, yeah, and as soon as we're allowed to work, we'll see what that is like. Belt fed machine guns.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:00:57

      Dude, I'm so ready for that, you know?

   9. ESEthan Suplee1:00:59

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:01:00

       So ready for it. Look, um, links to Ethan's socials, his fantastic podcast, American Glutton, which you should absolutely go and check out, will be linked in the show notes below. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to give me a message. You know where to find me, @chriswillx on all social media. Man, thanks, Ethan. This has been sick.

   11. ESEthan Suplee1:01:17

       Thank you. It was a pleasure. Uh, let's do it again sometime.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:01:20

       I'm in.

   13. ESEthan Suplee1:01:21

       All right.

   14. NANarrator1:01:25

       (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:01:38