There’s an old adage ‘eat big to train big’.
It turns out they’re not sh*tting us. This was the exactly what Hafthor Julius Bjornsson did to transform his body from scrawny basketballer to 28-stone monster.
The 26-year-old, who plays The Mountain in Game of Thrones and trained with Conor McGregor before his fight with Jose Aldo, is now one of the strongest men on the planet with a 450kg raw deadlift and two Europe’s Strongest Man titles to his name.
But the Icelander’s diet and ridiculous eating plan played a big hand in forging his giant physique.
This video shows what Bjornsson was like before he started smashing the weights and devouring every potato and chicken fillet in sight.
But in an interview with GQ magazine he revealed exactly what he has been eating to make him absolutely massive.
“The biggest changes were that I didn’t do much cardio anymore, and I put more food into my diet,” he told the magazine.
“It’s just like constantly work for me: I have to eat every two hours to maintain my body mass. It is not easy. When I’m filming, I always have to have breaks to eat.”
That means eating between six and eight meals a day.
“I eat a lot of sweet potatoes, a lot of meat, fish, chicken, good fats like cocoa butter, almonds. I love greens, like spinach, avocado, broccoli.
“I eat very healthy overall — but because of my weight, I need fast carbs, easy carbs. So maybe before a training session or after a training session, I eat what I want.”
