Chris Pratt has been charming the pants off everyone during the publicity tour for Jurassic World, but he recently opened up about the serious health problems he dealt with during his “heaviest” phase. Speaking to Men’s Health UK, Pratt said he was “never funnier” than when he was at his heaviest, but that, ultimately, the comedy wasn’t worth the damage to his health.
“I saw myself in an episode [of Parks and Rec] and in the matter of two moments very close together, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m getting fat,'” Pratt explained. “And then almost immediately I did something else and I thought, ‘Holy crap, I’ve never seen myself funnier.’ And I put the two together.”
This led to a sort of fat spiral, in which Pratt felt he had to continue adding weight in order to stay as funny as Parks and Recreation‘s Andy Dwyer needed to be:
It became a bit of a game: how fat can I get and how fast. I would eat four burgers at every read. I became really fat and got up to almost 300 pounds….[Plus] I’d fallen in love with a woman who loved to feed her man. [Wife Anna Faris and I] were drinking a lot of wine and having fun. I was her little Hansel out in the woods and she was fattening me up to put me in the fire. It was like Momma Bear and Papa Bear. She would eat a little bit, I would eat all of mine and the rest of hers.
What were the specific health issues Chris Pratt faced? He told the publication “I was impotent, fatigued, emotionally depressed. I had real health issues that were affecting me in a major way. It’s bad for your heart, your skin, your system, your spirit.”
It was when he slimmed down for his breakthrough action role in Zero Dark Thirty that Pratt decided he needed to make permanent changes in his life. “Right after walking out,” he said, “I was like, ‘I’m going to get in shape and I’m never going to be fat again.”
Now, meal times are “lame,” but “all the time between meals, I feel great.”
You can check out some more photos of a ripped Chris Pratt in the current issue of Men’s Health UK.
(Photo credits: WENN; Chris Pratt via Instagram)
