Ethan Suplee decided it was time to do something about his weight when he found standing difficult – and couldn’t even go to the cinema with his partner.
The veteran actor, who shot to fame as Randy Hickey in US sitcom My Name is Earl, was “raised on and off diets” when he was growing up, but “hated” being restricted with his food intake.
But it was falling in love that made The Butterfly Effect star realise he had to make some changes.
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Opening up in an exclusive interview with Daily Star, Ethan admitted: “I never went on diets of my own volition – but then I got together with this girl I really cared about.
“I started to think about how unpresent I was for her in a lot of things. She liked to go to the beach, she liked to hike, she liked to go to museums. All these things I would get out of doing with her.
(Image: Instagram/ @ethansuplee)
“I didn’t want to go to the beach, I didn’t want to hike – hiking was exhausting. I was very, very big and any amount of time spent joyfully standing up was not fun for me.”
Ethan confessed that his partner was “fine with me missing the beach and missing going to the movies” with her – but he decided he wanted to give their relationship a proper go, and in 2002 went on his first diet by choice.
And that partner, of course, turned out to be his wife, Brandy Lewis.
The pair went from strength to strength and tied the knot in 2006 – but it wasn’t easy for Ethan to give up his big ‘secret’.
(Image: GC Images)
He explained: “I had to discuss it with her. It was this very bizarre moment for me where I felt like I was going to let her in on a secret.
“I do not think that our relationship would have gone on forever had I not told her my secret, which was that I weighed 500lbs.”
He elaborated: “She was objectively aware that I was as large as I was, but she might not have had a number for it. She was unaware of my secret because she’d never reacted to it the way I perceived everyone else reacting to it.
“She totally just accepted me and never brought it up, and never had a problem with it.”
(Image: ethansuplee/Instagram)
And finally, Brandy provided the support Ethan needed.
“She was like, ‘If you want to do that, I’ll help you. You tell me what you need and I’ll tell you what my thoughts are’.”
The pair are now parents to four daughters, welcoming Billie Grace and Frances Clementine throughout the course of their marriage.
They also share Lily and Bella, Brandy’s daughters from a previous relationship.
(Image: Stephen Lovekin/REX/Shutterstock)
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And now Ethan’s relationship with food has totally transformed.
He said: “For many years, probably more than a decade, I considered that food was the problem. It took a long time to find out there’s really no finite, fixed solution to me. I am a work in progress from here on out.
“Diets are a tool. If you wanted to build a house and you needed a hammer, the hammer’s not going to do all the work for you. There’s still a lot of work you have to do and you might need other tools.
“So that was the thing that changed for me – it isn’t food that’s the problem, it’s my relationship with food.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
