Everything Rob McElhenney Did To Gain (And Lose) 60 Pounds For 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia'
Most actors want to look their best for their roles. Unless that actor is Rob McElhenney. The star and creator of irreverent sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia famously changed his slim physique in the most dramatic way, not once but twice. As creator of the longest running comedy in television history, you'd think that McElhenney's character, Mac, would look better as the series progressed. But in keeping with his show's darkly comic humor, he had another idea planned entirely.
In season 7 of the show, Mac gains a lot of weight. But by the next season, he is extremely slim and toned, becoming increasingly more muscular as the series progresses. So how exactly did Rob McElhenney gain and lose 60 lbs for the show? Keep reading to find out.
10 Gaining Weight For The Show Took 3 Months
It was in season 6 that Mac first started to show signs of subtle weight gain, but by the 7th season his weight gain made him near unrecognizable. McElhenney's rationale for creating "Fat Mac", as he is known, was to counter the sitcom cliché of characters getting better looking as the actors grow richer, citing Friends as an example of this. The weight gain process took 3 months, eventually taking McElhenney from 160 lbs to 220 lbs.
9 He Ate 5,000 Calories A Day
To gain the weight, McElhenney had to eat five 1,000 calorie meals a day. Initially, he tried eating chicken, rice, and vegetables, but he struggled to finish his meals and keep the heavy food down. That was, until he was offered a much easier solution...
8 Two Big Macs For Mac
During an appearance on actor Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert, McElhenney explained that, á la Super Size Me, he indulged in Big Macs, which angered his doctor. "So, I went to my doctor, because I wanted to be monitored through the whole thing, because this is funny. And my doctor said: 'To be clear, this is not funny. Don't do this. This is really dangerous.'"
Nevertheless, he chatted to a nutritionist, who suggested eating two Big Macs a day, to which McElhenney obliged, as they were much easier to eat than the aforementioned chicken, rice, and vegetables. As the actor explained to Nick Kroll, "you start to see the Big Mac and realize it's a lot easier to get down".
7 Drinking Ice-Cream
While Rob McElhenney may not be the first - or last - actor to dramatically change their weight for a role, his process is certainly among the most ingenious and interesting. As he explained to Conan O'Brien, "The first 20 pounds was easy, honestly. The next 40 were tough."
But he found a solution: "I would have my assistant in the morning go out and buy... a gallon of ice-cream and he would put it out on the counter and I wouldn't eat it until 4 o'clock in the afternoon because it would melt and I would drink it."
6 Eating Cottage Cheese At 2am Was Key
Cottage cheese doesn't have the most appetizing appearance, so eating it at 2am sounds absolutely nauseating. But that's exactly what McElhenney did to pile on the extra pounds, emphasising his commitment to his weight gain goal.
"But this was the key," he told Dax Shepard. "I read that cottage cheese metabolises really slow in your stomach, so if you eat cottage cheese, the last thing you want to do is eat it right before you go to bed... So, I started eating cottage cheese in the middle of the night. I would wake up at 2am and I would eat cottage cheese."
5 But Soon It Was Time To Lose The Weight
Within a month, McElhenney was able to lose 23 lbs of the 60 lbs he had gained. Not too long afterwards, he lost the remaining pounds. But he was quite sad to let go of the extra weight, explaining that he actually enjoyed living in a larger body and didn't experience fatigue or other side effects from the weight gain.
4 Getting Ripped Took Less Work
At the 2018 Los Angeles Pride Parade, McElhenney showed his support for LGBT+ rights alongside his wife Kaitlin Olson and co-star Danny DeVito. What shocked people the most was the fact that the formerly rotund actor was now totally ripped.
McElhenney explained that losing the weight and getting ripped was actually a quicker process than gaining weight. "Losing it is easy. You just stop eating so ****ing much," he told Nick Kroll.
3 Working Out Three Times A Week
McElhenney may now boast a 6 pack, but he was in a very different physical state just a few years ago. In order to get fit, he worked out 3 times a week. He would weight lift an incredible 6 days a week and run 3 miles a day, which helped him lose weight and also obtain muscle definition.
2 This Celeb Fitness Trainer Helped Him Get Ripped
Arin Babaian is a celeb fitness trainer who worked with the cast of Magic Mike. Since Babaian helped get Channing Tatum in shape, McElhenney figured that he could help him, too.
Babaian got McElhenney to do incline dumbbell presses, high cable chest flyes, bench presses, and cable rotations to get into shape.
1 But The Diet Was Brutal
McElhenney has been honest about his fitness journey. To lose the 60 lbs he had gained to play "Fat Mac", he had to endure a gruelling and brutal diet. "Do you like food? Forget about that. Because you're never going to enjoy anything you eat. Alcohol? Sorry. That's out. So what you need to do - you have a chef... make sure the chef makes you a lot of chicken breast. And make sure you keep your caloric intake at a certain level," he told Men's Health.
However, in that same interview, McElhenney did point out that it's men, not women, who pressure other men into getting jacked: "There's this fascination that men want to look like that and men want to be aesthetically pleasing to other men."
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