Zac Efron
Actor · the Baywatch body and what it cost him
Actor since High School Musical, and since Baywatch the subject of more commentary about his body than about his films. He has been open about what the 2017 lifeguard look cost him: 4 a.m. workouts on almost no sleep, the same three meals every day, then insomnia and a depression that took six months to shake. What he rebuilt afterwards leans on recovery, with foam rolling, stretching, yoga, a Theragun and a daily ice bath, plus intermittent fasting and a protein-heavy plan after two years as a vegan. He also hosted Netflix's Down to Earth.
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The gear and products they use
All 3 products in this stack
- BookDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Can't Hurt Me
Out of training in Australia, he read a lot. Men's Health reports that David Goggins and the stay hard doctrine landed with him particularly hard after he got through this one.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieVisit davidgoggins.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 2 of 54 stacks - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Percussion massage gun
Self-massage sits in the same recovery block as the rolling. He puts it plainly to Men's Health: he lives attached to a Theragun.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieView item: Percussion massage gunBacked by 2 of 54 stacks - SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Bone broth
Bone broth soup with vegetables is what breaks the fast, according to Men's Health, served alongside a clean protein such as elk or chicken.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron's Body Told Him To Give Up VeganismView item: Bone brothBacked by 1 of 54 stacks
Protocols
13 entriesRepeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.
He wanted to keep training militantly after the Australian break, the cover story says, but to do it more mindfully. He says he enjoys pushing himself hard, to the point where he sort of has to, or he does not feel like himself.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 41 of 54 stacksIce baths are his favorite part of the day, he told Men's Health. By his account the worst of it comes before you get in, and once you commit and jump, you have conquered something deep down.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 25 of 54 stacksHe started intermittent fasting right after he stopped being vegan, and says it has been really helpful. Two meals a day now, with the fast broken late morning.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron's Body Told Him To Give Up VeganismBacked by 21 of 54 stacksEating everything again did not suit him either, per the cover story, and a battery of food-sensitivity tests led him to a protein-heavy plan. Over a steakhouse dinner with the writer he said he was bulking for a role he would not name.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 19 of 54 stacksYoga arrived during the pandemic break, when Men's Health reports he leaned on stretching and yoga alongside strength training. The magazine credits that shift with turning his workouts into something more mindful.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron on His Baywatch Body TransformationBacked by 8 of 54 stacksStretching is one of three things the cover story says he champions, alongside self-massage and yoga. It belongs to the recovery-heavy routine that came out of his break in Australia.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 7 of 54 stacksMorning cardio comes first, to get the blood flowing, and only then does he break the fast around 11 a.m. That is Men's Health describing his two-meal day.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron's Body Told Him To Give Up VeganismBacked by 4 of 54 stacksBetween films he describes living in a van, seeing as much of the world as he can, or hiking in the woods and camping. Ten T-shirts, five pairs of workout shorts and a couple of tracksuits is close to the whole wardrobe, by his own count.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 2 of 54 stacksTen or so rollers in different sizes, per Men's Health, which calls him a fanatic about it. Half an hour before he trains, then a full hour before bed.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 1 of 54 stacksLiver and onions is the dish he names. He calls it kind of weird that he really likes organ meats, and Men's Health frames giving them up as one of the costs of the vegan stretch.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron's Body Told Him To Give Up VeganismBacked by 1 of 54 stacksSleep was the thing he cut. If filming stopped at midnight he would still be up at 4 a.m. to train, and Men's Health lists that next to the overtraining as part of the Baywatch method he now warns people about.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 20 of 54 stacksTwo years vegan, partly inspired by his Down to Earth cohost Darin Olien, until he noticed he felt depleted and went back to eating everything. He adds that morally he still wishes he was vegan.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 5 of 54 stacksSix months without a carb while shooting Baywatch, and he says he almost lost his mind. Eating with locals in Sardinia for Down to Earth, he told the table he was happy to be eating carbs again and that their high-carb, low-protein way of eating was the opposite of what any trainer had taught him.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Says He Nearly Lost His Mind While Dieting to Get Shredded for BaywatchBacked by 3 of 54 stacks
Habits
3 entriesDaily practices held long enough to become default behavior.
Take the thing you least want to do and turn it into a routine: that is how he sums up his own philosophy for Men's Health, with the ice bath as the example. The magazine reads his approach to fitness as a deliberate embrace of misery.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 3 of 54 stacksHe drinks some apple cider vinegar before most meals, a detail the Men's Health cover story mentions alongside the food-sensitivity testing and the protein-heavy plan that came out of it.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 2 of 54 stacksThe same three meals every day was part of the Baywatch method he now warns people off, along with the overtraining and the 4 a.m. starts. He says he is speaking up so anyone chasing that look knows how devastating the process was for him.
Source: Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next MovieBacked by 2 of 54 stacks
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time. Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering.”
Men's Health: Zac Efron on His Baywatch Body Transformation (opens in a new tab) · 7 Sept 2022 “That Baywatch look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable. There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d”
Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next Movie (opens in a new tab) · 7 Sept 2022 “It’s my favorite part of the day. Before is when it’s most miserable, and when you finally just commit and jump in there. From that point forward, you’ve conquered something deep within you; you do not want to get cold”
Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next Movie (opens in a new tab) · 7 Sept 2022 “That’s the simplest philosophy: Anything you don’t want to do, make it a habit.”
Men's Health: Zac Efron Interview on His Career, His Health, and His Next Movie (opens in a new tab) · 7 Sept 2022 “I started intermittent fasting just after I stopped being vegan. My body wasn't processing the vegetables in the right way”
Men's Health: Zac Efron's Body Told Him To Give Up Veganism (opens in a new tab) · 7 Sept 2022
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.