Zac Efron got candid about his unattainable Baywatch look because of which he developed insomnia and fell into depression. The High School Musical star talked about the adverse effects of his diet and fitness plan for the action comedy film which also stars Dwayne Johnson to Men’s Health.
The actor, who flaunted his chiseled physique in the 2017 movie, felt “burned out” after the training during which he also consumed diuretics.
“That Baywatch look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable. There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d,” he spoke of his training and look.
“And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that. I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3 percent body fat.
“I started to develop insomnia and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time,” Efron revealed. “Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering.”
He added, “Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.”
The outlet shared that six months after the film wrapped, the actor began to feel better and took a break from acting and went to Australia.
However, the actor said that he wondered at the time, “What it would be like to not have to be in shape all the time?”
“What if I just say, ‘(expletive)’ and let myself go? So I tried it, and I was successful. And for all the reasons I thought it would be incredible, I was just miserable,” he added.
“My body would not feel healthy; I just didn’t feel alive. I felt bogged down and slow,” he revealed while adding that the experience has taught him to seek balance.
“I’ve really been taking time to focus on, you know, self-fulfilment and trying to find my groove,” he told the publication.