Huge noughties TV star's incredible transformation after shedding almost 20stone

Daily Record

05-05-2025

Ethan Suplee has been a familiar face on TV screens for decades, but the actor was sick of always being type-cast as the 'fat guy' and knew he needed to make a change
Actors often get pigeonholed into roles based on their physical appearance. However, a renowned sitcom star, tired of being referred to as the "fat one," underwent a dramatic transformation, losing nearly 20 stone.
During the early 2000s, Ethan Suplee became a familiar face in several classic sitcoms, including Boy Meets World, My Name Is Earl, and Remember the Titans. However, in 2001, at 24, Suplee struggled with an unhealthy relationship with food, which caused a sharp weight increase.
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That same year, after enrolling in a rehab centre for his substance addictions, Suplee could not be weighed on a standard scale, so he used a shipping facility's freight scale. This indicated his weight to be around 536 pounds or about 37 stone.
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At the time, his weight was causing congestive heart failure.
Despite his rehabilitation, Suplee put on another 14 pounds initially. Discussing his habits with Today, he confessed: "I'd eat and eat. It's what I'd always done.", reports the Irish Star.
He attributed his eating habits to the strict diet regimen enforced by his grandparents while growing up. It had the opposite effect: "It was coming from a place of love and concern, but it had this terrible reverse effect where I was like, 'OK. I'm just gonna sneak food whenever I possibly can.' And that became my habit. I would binge when nobody was looking.
"This quickly became an issue with the extensive catering on film and TV sets: "I'd fill my pockets and go back to my trailer. Then I'd hit a drive-thru and buy enough food to feed a small family and sit in my house alone and eat it."
However, following an extraordinary transformation, the actor has radically altered his lifestyle and dietary habits, managing to lose 300 pounds along the way.
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He had experimented with various restrictive diets in the past, achieving some success, but inevitably, the weight would always return. It was in 2018 when he stumbled upon a TED Talk by Mike Isratel, which suggested that carbs might not be the culprit, but rather his relationship with food.
Starting his new regimen, he concentrated on calorie counting and consuming just the right amount of calories for his body to sustain a slight deficit.
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Additionally, he switched to nutrient-rich foods like leafy greens, chicken, and salmon, which were satisfying without contributing to excessive calorie intake.
He explained: "As I became more calorie conscious, I started to binge less and fill up on healthier foods. After a few months of this, calories stopped being calories. They started being food."
Now a grandfather and father to four daughters, the desire for a lasting future became a driving force behind his journey. In a conversation with Mail Online, Suplee shared: "I wanted to have this long life with my girlfriend that I knew was impossible if I didn't do something about my weight.
"She liked to go to the beach, and I did not like to go to the beach. She liked to go to museums, she liked to go hiking. She liked to go on walks just to enjoy the walk, and I couldn't do any of that stuff with her.
"Now she never asked me to [lose weight], but I knew that in the long term, our relationship would not survive if I didn't confront this."