This Hollywood Star Lost & Gained Nearly 1,000 Pounds in His Lifetime – Now He Looks Unrecognizable

At his heaviest, he had to step onto a freight scale, as no medical scale could measure his weight. Two decades later, he would measure progress by the contour of his abs instead of the number on a scale. Between those points lies a transformation defined by relapse, resilience, and relentless recalibration.

His body changed dramatically over the years — gaining and shedding hundreds of pounds as his health, career, and personal life shifted course. At times, the changes were for film roles; at others, they followed strict diets or intense routines that didn't last. The scale swung in both directions, again and again.

Throughout his life, he lost and regained nearly 1,000 pounds. Yet the story behind those numbers included more than food and exercise. It involved patterns that began in childhood, a health crisis in early adulthood, and a turning point years into fatherhood. This is the story of how he got there — and what it took to stay.

He was five years old when his parents placed him on a restrictive diet. At that age, he wasn't interested in nutritional rules or portion control, so he found ways around them. When his parents weren't watching, he would binge eat. By the time he turned ten, he weighed 200 pounds.

The pattern continued. His size increased steadily throughout childhood, and by the time he entered his teens, his weight had already become a defining part of his life. These early experiences with dieting and overeating would repeat in cycles for decades.

At sixteen, he booked his first acting role on the television series "Boy Meets World" in 1993. More roles followed, including appearances in "Remember the Titans," "American History X," and "The Wolf of Wall Street." As his screen presence grew, so did the attention to his size.

He often played characters whose weight was part of the role, but he resisted scripts that relied on fat jokes. He said he told his agents to look for parts where his appearance wouldn't be used as a punchline. When writers tried to include lines that made his size the focus, he asked for them to be removed.

He said:

“I never wanted to do something where I was the fat guy who was the butt of a fat guy joke.”

In 2001, at twenty-four years old, he was admitted to a treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction. During the intake process, the staff discovered that none of their medical scales could accommodate his weight.

He was sent to a nearby shipping center, where he was weighed on a freight scale. The number read approximately 536 pounds. At the time, he was also suffering from congestive heart failure. Despite the health concerns, his eating habits didn't change immediately.

He said he continued to eat excessively and estimated that he gained an additional fourteen pounds while in rehab. "I'd eat and eat. It's what I'd always done," he would later recall.

In 2001, shortly after entering recovery, he reconnected with Brandy Lewis. They had first met when they were sixteen and had remained close friends. He described himself as being "utterly in love with her" during their early friendship, though she wasn't initially interested in a romantic relationship.

When they reunited years later, their relationship developed into something more. They began dating in 2002, during his early recovery. He described Lewis as the first person who accepted him completely, without expressing concern about his size.

Before he started seeing her, he often went to bed convinced he wouldn't wake up, but being with her shifted that mindset. He began thinking about the possibility of having a future and doing things he previously couldn't — like hiking, traveling, or walking through a museum.

He said he didn't want to describe Lewis as someone who saved his life, but acknowledged that his perspective changed after they got together. He revealed:

"My life meant very little to me prior to her… it was the first time I started thinking about the future. That was really how I clawed my way out of this pit."

They married in 2006 and went on to have four daughters together. He later said that the turning point in his health journey began around the time he had been dating Lewis for about a year. He credited her support and acceptance as the foundation that helped him start losing weight in a way that felt sustainable.

He said, "That, I think was kind of the bedrock that I was successful with my goals at." Between 2002 and 2005, he lost a significant amount of weight, dropping from around 530 pounds to approximately 290. During that time, he was cast in the NBC comedy "My Name Is Earl," where he played Randy Hickey.

The role brought him mainstream recognition, but he later said that the progress he made during those years didn't last. He admitted that after landing the part, he "got lazy and relaxed." When "My Name Is Earl" ended in 2009, he decided to lose weight again. This time, he reduced his weight to 220 pounds.

Alongside his fitness journey, his relationship with his family has become a central part of his day-to-day life.

To get there, he followed an extreme routine: doing up to eight hours of cardio a day, six days a week, and severely restricting his food intake. He later described the approach as starvation-style dieting and said he wasn't eating enough to sustain it. The weight eventually came back.

In part, he said, this was because of a role in the series "Chance," where producers felt he looked too thin. He gained weight again to match the part, but after the project ended, he made a decision to stop letting acting roles determine his body size.

He decided that even if someone offered him parts in remakes of "American History X" or "Cold Mountain," he would not gain weight again just to be in them. In 2018, he came across a TED Talk by fitness expert Mike Isratel that reframed the way he thought about food.

Until then, he had cycled through countless diets — including keto, Atkins, and anti-inflammatory plans — without lasting success. What finally resonated with him was the idea that his weight issues weren't about specific foods like carbs or gluten, but about how he related to eating itself.

The actor returned to keto for a time and quickly began to lose weight, but noticed that he wasn't maintaining muscle. That led him to take a more research-driven approach. He shifted to a lean, high-protein, low-fat diet structured similarly to what bodybuilders use when training.

His goal became reducing his body fat to 10% — something he had never come close to before. "It's completely arbitrary," he said. "I want to see a six-pack." To reach that goal, he took a deliberate approach to his eating habits. He explained:

"I work to make my diet unenjoyable. I want food not to be a crutch emotionally. I want it to be a source of fuel."

By October 2020, he had reached his goal: 10 percent body fat and visible abs. The transformation required precise adjustments to his diet, including careful tracking of carbohydrates and sodium, under the supervision of his trainer, Jared Feather.

After years of avoiding public situations where he might have to take off his shirt, he finally felt comfortable doing so. "I had spent 35, 40 years without taking my shirt off in public," he said. He made it clear that the results weren't temporary.

Unlike earlier weight-loss attempts, he said he had no plans to return to his old habits or his previous size. The change in appearance was dramatic enough to make him a subject of online commentary and memes. When promotional images from his podcast began circulating, many people didn't recognize him.

Others expressed shock at how different he looked, especially compared to his earlier roles. Many praised the discipline behind his transformation, and social media filled with comments like "You look awesome," "So handsome," and "Inspiration for the people!!!" One follower wrote, "His transformation got me inspired again."

Ethan Suplee launched "American Glutton," a podcast where he discusses eating, training, and lifestyle with both friends and experts. In addition to interviews, he also created a 30-day accountability forum, where he connects with people who are pursuing similar health goals.

Through the platform, he's shared not only his methods but the mindset shift that helped him make lasting changes. Since reaching his goal of 10 percent body fat, his focus began to shift. Rather than continuing to chase increasingly lower numbers, he turned his attention to maintaining his progress while living a more balanced life.

He stopped measuring every detail or restricted himself to rigid rules. Suplee had spent much of his career navigating public perception shaped by his weight. Over the years, he had lost and regained nearly 1,000 pounds.

Instead, he learned to eat in a way that supported his goals without depriving himself. He said, "I am eating more food than I have in years."

While on a Thanksgiving vacation with his family, he said he was initially worried about gaining weight, but didn't, because he stuck to eating the way he knew worked for him. "It doesn't feel fragile," he said of the progress.

One moment that stood out to him came while sharing a bag of McDonald's fries with his daughter, who at 15 had never tried them before. He said they didn't even finish the bag and that it "wasn't even a thing." That marked a shift from decades of intense restriction followed by relapse, to a more sustainable, stable approach.

Today, Suplee continues to focus on maintaining the changes he worked years to achieve, both physically and mentally. He remains dedicated to his routine but no longer lets it dominate his life. Alongside his fitness journey, his relationship with his family has become a central part of his day-to-day life.

In May 2022, he posted a tribute to his family on his 46th birthday. It read "I'm married to the girl of my dreams[…] Every second of my life feels like a miracle." In the post, he expressed pride in their children, especially after watching one of their daughters graduate from college.

He noted that neither he nor Lewis had finished high school, and they were constantly amazed by how capable and intelligent their children had become. In December the same year, he also introduced their granddaughter in an Instagram post with a photo of the two of them.

He accompanied it with the words, "Happy Friday from me and my granddaughter!" In his birthday post, he had revealed, "We have the cutest granddaughter on earth and we weep with joy when we talk about her."

Suplee's daily mindset now focuses less on the big picture and more on the present moment. In another post, he wrote, "Once upon a time, the whole world was an impossibility. Conquering all of it is still impossible, so I'm just concentrating on today. If today becomes too much, I will focus on right now. Right now, I'm ok, I will beat right now."