How Matty Matheson Lost 60lbs in 12 Months and Isn’t Stopping Yet
Despite embarking on a remarkable fitness transformation over the last 12 months, Matty Matheson, thankfully, hasn’t lost his passion for food. But as he explains to Men’s Health his 60lbs (27kg) weight loss did begin with a big change to his eating habits.
A year ago, the 42-year-old chef, restaurateur and The Bear star was on holiday with his family. He was letting loose, but a week of fast food meal after fast food meal was enough to eat away at even Matheson’s supersized personality. By the end of the holiday, he was ‘done’ with fast food, done with unhealthy eating and done with being a massive dude who couldn’t run around and have fun with his kids whenever he wanted. ‘I was like, I'm not eating no more fast food, no more sugar, nothing,’ he says. ‘I'm eating vegetables and meat and just enough carbohydrates that my body needs.’
That’d be a hard shift for anyone, but Matheson’s life is food. He owns 11 restaurants, has a wildly successful YouTube channel, where he cooks home favourites and indulgent meals for his 1.5m subscribers. He has a line of cookwear for Christ’s sake. ‘Food has given me everything,’ he says. But despite all of that, he was true to his word and for the first three months after his holiday, his diet consisted of ‘a lot of eggs, a lot of steak, a lot of vegetables, a lot of chicken and a lot of salmon.’ He was eating fewer than 2000 calories a day, so was in a calorie deficit, and only drinking water. ‘No fast food, no sugar, no bullshit, no processed foods,’ he says.
After three months of eating well, he added walking and eventually workouts into his hectic lifestyle too – including sessions with his The Bear co-star Jeremy Allen White, who he describes as a ‘little Jack Rabbit’. ‘He does elevated stuff where I'm like I'm not there yet,’ he says.
12 months after he started and Matheson is now in a place where he’s consistently losing 5-7lbs (2-3kg) a month. He’s also working out three or four days a week. Unlike many other celebrities who’ve chosen to lose weight, however, he’s done it without the help of a personal trainer, instead opting to figure fitness out for himself. ‘Because if I pay a trainer, I can tell that trainer to fuck off. I'm paying them,’ he says.
During November, Matheson will be embarking on a tour of his native Canada and the US, to promote his new cookbook, Soups, Salads, Sandwiches: A Cookbook. Finding places to train during the month could pose a problem. For most people at least. But Matheson is used to travelling to different locations – whether that’s because he’s due on set or because he’s needed at one of his restaurants – and while the tour is ongoing, he’s adamant that he won’t allow the good habits he’s got into over the last year slip. ‘If I’ve got a cable machine and a rowing machine and some kettlebells, I'm happy. If there's some free weights and some dumbbells, I can make a workout. If I'm in my hotel room, I can do 30 to 50 push-ups, and air squats, and lunges and dips. I don't really fixate on where and what is available to me,’ he says.
It's now 11 years since Matheson got clean from drugs and alcohol. His addictions contributed to him having a heart attack at the age of 29; his path to recovery began when he hit rock bottom. Although the stakes are lower this time around, Matheson can see some similarities between giving up drink and drugs and taking greater care about what he puts into his body from here on out. ‘I made myself hate drugs and alcohol, and now I made myself hate processed foods and sugar’ he says. ‘If I don't put it in my body, I don't have to worry about it. So it's my choice every day. I just have to choose to not put it in my body.’
Not that there isn’t still room for Matheson to indulge every now and again. He hasn’t lost his passion or enthusiasm for food, after all. ’If I go to Italy, I'm going to eat some friggin’ pasta. It's like, make it worth it,’
Matty’s latest cookbook Soups, Salads, Sandwiches: A Cookbook is available now.
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