The comedian spent six months working on shedding the weight.
Eric André dropped a whopping 40 pounds and trimmed down to under nine percent body fat for season 6 of his Adult Swim show. The good news? He liked what he saw in the mirror. The bad news? It was irritating for a devotee of French fries.
The 40-year-old comedian opened up to GQ about the rigorous process he put his body through while filming the latest season of The Eric André Show. For six months, André got rid of junk food and booze and adopted a clean, strict diet. He counted calories and hit the gym hard -- with a variation of three-a-days -- but one of the most important things, he said, was getting enough Zzzs. As in sleep. Not pizza.
That's an important distinction, given that for season 5 he gained 40 pounds chowing down pizza every night and indulging on PB&J sammies and chugging piña coladas. For season 6, he opted for tons of protein -- meat, chicken, fish. But even though the pounds melted away, the transformation wasn't exactly fulfilling.
"Getting ripped, you look good in the mirror and you’re happy with what you see but you’re hungry -- and you can’t drink alcohol. You can’t really have fun," he told the men's magazine. "You have to eat in with every meal. You get these pre-made meals that become just boring and dreadful after a while. You can’t drink alcohol either."
He eventually slimmed down from 213 pounds to 174 and under nine percent body fat. He counted calories with the help of Noom and MyFitnessPal. André said counting calories was the most crucial part of dieting, but sleep's right up there, too. And he admits it's a challenge for someone like himself who is "such a huge coffee fan, and I love chocolate and Coca-Cola, and all the other things that keep me up. But what can I do?"
Well, what he did was go to town on his desires. Right after wrapping season 6, André said he hit up a pizza joint and ate an entire pepperoni pizza.
"And then I went to Portugal and drank my weight in wine," he added. "I got back from the trip and stepped on the scale, and I undid six months of work in about three weeks."
André, who famously dated model Emily Ratajkowski earlier this year and turned the big 4-0 in April, said he's learned over the years that life is about balance. But putting his body through a strict diet had him feeling, well, annoyed.
"I remember being irritated. There is a reason skinny people are bitches and fat people are jolly," he said. "Fat people are happy -- sumo wrestlers, Santa Claus. Skinny people have f***ing attitudes because they're f***ing starving. I say stay fat. If you're fat or chubby, stay that way. I felt great...but it wasn't worth cutting out French fries."
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