How Much Weight Did Fat Mac Gain?

Cottage cheese doesn’t have the most appetizing appearance, so eating it at 2am sounds absolutely nauseating. But that’s exactly what McElhenney did to pile on the extra pounds, emphasising his commitment to his weight gain goal. “But this was the key,” he told Dax Shepard.

“You know what the most fun was, was getting rid of any shred of vanity,” he concluded. With muscles for the Season 13 premiere, fans were drooling over Mac’s new image. We actually had to pause for five minutes to get our heart beats to calm down after witnessing Rob’s transformation on It’s Always Sunny.

McElhenney said it was “easy” to drop the pounds after the Fat Mac season, mostly because quitting drinking cut out an average of 4,000 calories a day. The actor’s tolerance for wine had gotten so high during the process that he said he could finish 1.5 to 2 bottles of wine a night.

As his show entered its seven season, he decided sudden weight gain would be a perfect way to mock other shows and capsize the relentless vanity of his character, Mac. (He tried to get the whole cast to join in the weight gain, but all passed.

How much weight did Fat Mac gain?

The weight gain process took 3 months, eventually taking McElhenney from 160 lbs to 220 lbs.

Within a month, McElhenney was able to lose 23 lbs of the 60 lbs he had gained. Not too long afterwards, he lost the remaining pounds. But he was quite sad to let go of the extra weight, explaining that he actually enjoyed living in a larger body and didn’t experience fatigue or other side effects from the weight gain.

McElhenney may now boast a 6 pack, but he was in a very different physical state just a few years ago. In order to get fit, he worked out 3 times a week. He would weight lift an incredible 6 days a week and run 3 miles a day, which helped him lose weight and also obtain muscle definition.

To gain the weight, McElhenney had to eat five 1,000 calorie meals a day. Initially, he tried eating chicken, rice, and vegetables, but he struggled to finish his meals and keep the heavy food down. That was, until he was offered a much easier solution…

As creator of the longest running comedy in television history, you’d think that McElhenney’ s character, Mac, would look better as the series progressed. But in keeping with his show’s darkly comic humor, he had another idea planned entirely. In season 7 of the show, Mac gains a lot of weight.

While Rob McElhenney may not be the first – or last – actor to dramatically change their weight for a role, his process is certainly among the most ingenious and interesting. As he explained to Conan O’Brien, “The first 20 pounds was easy, honestly. The next 40 were tough.”