Zac Efron says he “became very depressed” because of his Baywatch training method.
Zac Efron has a new approach to fitness.
Efron, 34, recently told Men’s Health in a new interview published Wednesday that while he’s currently building for undisclosed film roles, he’s no longer interested in looking as muscular as he did in 2017’s Baywatch.
“That Baywatch look, I don’t know if it’s really achievable. There’s not enough water on the skin,” Efron told Men’s Health. “Is that wrong; it looks like CGI. And it requires Lasix, a strong diuretic, to make it happen. So I don’t have to. I’d rather have 2 to 3 percent more body fat.”
In addition to diuretics, Efron says he’s exercising too much, eating the same three meals a day, and not getting enough sleep to maintain the high energy levels he delivers while staying in shape for movies, according to Men’s Health.
Although Efron told the publication he was initially happy to be at Baywatch, he said he wanted to raise awareness about the long-term negative effect that level of training had on him. “I started having insomnia and fell into a pretty bad depression for a long time. Something about that experience burned me,” Efron told Men’s Health. “It was really mightily for me to go back. I ended up taking too many diuretics for too long and it messed things up. ”
Efron began rethinking his approach to fitness early in the pandemic in Australia, first experimenting with a complete break from exercise before re-emerging as a “foam roller fanatic” touting stretching, yoga, massage guns and ice baths as his gym, according to for Men’s Health.
“[The ice bath was] my favorite part of the day. Before that, it was the saddest and when you finally buckled up and jumped in,” Efron told the outlet. “From then on you conquer something deep inside; you don’t want to catch a cold.”
“It’s the simplest philosophy: Whatever you don’t want to do, get used to it,” he added.