How To Lose Weight By Being Cast As A Superhero In A High-Budget Film Franchise

I’ll admit that when I first heard about the so-called “Superhero Diet,” I wasn’t sure if it was right for me. As a 30-something guy who’s never been athletically inclined and perks up when he sees sausage gravy on a menu, I figured the closest I would ever come to feeling like a superhero was donating to a charity for a chance to be Mark Ruffalo’s special guest on the red carpet of the next Avengers movie.

My weight has always fluctuated somewhere between almost-but-not-quite-skinny and wearing a t-shirt in swimming pools. So yeah, I wasn’t sure if the Superhero Diet would work for me. But I figured if Chris Pratt could go from adorable butterball to having like eleven abs, it was worth looking into. So I did. And it changed my life forever. And if I can do it, you can too. All it takes is commitment, patience, and a 7-picture deal from a major movie studio.

As you can probably imagine, change doesn’t happen overnight. You gotta ease into it first. I started simply, with a few guest spots on soap operas and police procedurals. That dovetailed into a 3-episode arc as a love-interest on a sitcom. The best part about this phase of the diet is that you can pretty much eat whatever you want. Soon after, I moved into the “That Guy” phase, where people were consistently recognizing my face but didn’t know my name. You might find this to be one of the hardest parts of the diet because it can continue right up through three full seasons as a series regular on a TNT drama. You just have to power through until you start landing roles as the funny friend in romcoms, or being cast against type as the antagonist in an indy mumblecore film.

But it was after signing that 7-picture deal with a big studio for a new superhero franchise when I really started to see some results. After all, it is called the “Superhero Diet.” Things quickly kicked into high-gear, as the studio assigned me a team of dietitians and a personal trainer who spent 17 years in the Israeli Defense Forces. From this point forward, the dietitians will pretty much take the wheel in terms of your food. They shopped for all my groceries and prepared all of my meals, meticulously counting every single calorie and protein… unit? To be honest I still have no clue how nutrition works. They would just be like “Here, eat this” and slap my hand if I tried to stick my finger in the jar of no-sugar-added peanut butter. Meals would consist mostly of boiled chicken breasts and non-fat yogurt. This will take some getting used to because non-fat yogurt is basically vinegar pudding. I got a little depressed during this phase, having to give up even the foods that I had previously thought were healthy, like bran muffins and any kind of juice. But it was all offset by the large sums of money I was now making, which I could spend on cool leather jackets, actual dinosaur bones, and rare vintage pinball machines.

Meanwhile, I was doing two-a-day workouts with my trainer, Yair, flipping over tractor wheels and swinging those big ropes. Any time I’d complain, he’d tell me horrifying stories about his days in the IDF which I have neither the desire nor the wherewithal to ever repeat to anyone. At the same time, I was learning fight choreography. If you end up playing one of the superheroes who wears a mask that covers their entire face, like Spider-Man, this part will be a lot easier for you. I wasn’t so lucky. It isn’t as physically taxing as the tractor wheels, but when you’ve got a 115-pound stunt woman doing that move where she jumps up and clamps her legs around your neck before using her body-weight to flip you over 4 or 5 times in one training/rehearsal session, the only thing that can make you feel better other than a roast beef au jus is a two-hour massage with your personal masseuse, which you’ll have.

You might think things will ease up once you wrap principal photography, but there’s always the chance of reshoots and having to film another gratuitous abs-sploitation scene, ahead of which you  won’t be allowed to drink any water, so your skin clings to your muscles like one of those storage bags that you suck all the air out of with a vacuum cleaner.

Obviously, the trickiest part of any diet isn’t losing the weight, but keeping it off. And that’s why the Superhero Diet stands above the rest. You literally have to sign a contract promising that you’ll stay fit and skinny for at least six sequels, with a possibility to renegotiate for an additional four if the franchise performs well in China. And that’s not even including cameos in other superheroes standalone movies.

All in all, I had a great experience with the Superhero Diet. I’m in the best shape of my life. I have tons of energy. I sleep better. I’m personal friends with Ellen DeGeneres. I’m on my way to owning a complete Allosaurus skeleton, and honestly don’t even miss stuff like soft pretzels or crab rangoon. I don’t even remember what they taste like anymore! It’s definitely not right for everyone though. After one outing as Batman, Ben Affleck was pretty much over it and spent the entirety of the next movie in Bat-armor or a bulky overcoat. But if you’re willing to put in the hard work and commitment, the Superhero Diet is by far the best way to get into great shape, lose weight, and keep it off until you’re fifty, at which point I’m told the Plastic Surgery Diet is your best and only option.