UrbanUpdate

The trainer-with-an-inspiring-backstory is pretty common. He doesn’t just pump you up, he motivates you with tales of his obese childhood and his rigorous climb to rippling, well-muscled perfection. What you don't see too often, though, is a trainer who used to be fat going out of his way to get flabby again.

Adonis Hill used to weigh 310 pounds. Five years ago, he vowed to keep it off for good, and managed to maintain his weight at a chiseled 190. “I know what it’s like,” he says. “I would lose weight, gain it back, lose weight, gain weight back.” Then the Brooklyn-based trainer signed up to be on A&E’s Fit to Fat to Fit, a Biggest Loser-esque reality show where trainers gain weight so they can lose it again with their clients. To prep for the show, Hill gained 70 pounds in four months.

Four months.

“One thing I was nervous about was getting addicted to these foods again,” he says, “and the depression. The last time I was big I was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. And, superficially, I was worried about the man-boobs.”

The man-boobs did come back, from A-cups to B-cups, thanks to Hill’s unrelenting (and physician monitored) weight-gain plan. He decided to eat foods that his previous clients had struggled with, like bagels and cream cheese, donuts, daily Big Macs—high-calorie, low-nutrient stuff in general. He was shocked when his weight stalled after 50 pounds, but a gallon of soda a day took care of the last 20.

On top of that, there was no exercise allowed during the embiggening phase. He struggled to do even a single push-up the first time he was back in a gym. “When I was trying to do pull-ups, I thought, ‘Damn, maybe I should just stay here. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.’ But it’s all mental. You can start to convince yourself, ‘Oh, you’re a little big, but women like bigger guys.’ Then you walk around being miserable.”

"The Lift" by Francesco Paciocco

Then the time came to lose the weight. Hill relied on a high-fat, high-protein, low-starch diet, with a single cheat hour programmed in after three weeks. That diet continues for two months, then with weekly cheat hours, and then transitions to a low-glycemic diet with whole grains. (Hill’s pretty adamant: this diet is for seriously overweight people and not for guys looking to drop a few pounds pre-beach.) Of course, this being reality TV and all, is rounded out with non-stop daily aspirational quotes. (“I thought this would be damn corny, but it worked.”)

Hill’s next plans involve a walk across the country to raise awareness about obesity. His own adventures in gain and loss were also a reminder of how challenging overweight life can be. (There’s no quicker way to get glares than being a fat person on a crowded subway train, he said.) Even the servers at McDonald’s where Hill ate steadily during his gorging, started to give him attitude. “It got to the point where the cashier actually got annoyed with me and would say, ‘Two Big Macs again?’ And one time she said it with this look of disgust and I just said, ‘Nope, I’m out,’ and I turned and left. But I just waited for a different shift. So even though I felt disgusted with myself, that’s when I realized this was like a real addiction.”

The Weight Gain Diet

BreakfastCoffee and cake

SnackChips or a donut

LunchThree $1 pizza slices

SnackSleeve of Oreos, double stuffed

DinnerTwo Big Macs, fries, apple pie

Luke Darby is a contributor to GQ, covering news, entertainment, and the environment. A Louisiana native, he now resides in Cleveland, and his writing has also appeared in Outside, the Dallas Observer, and Marie Claire.Related Stories for GQReal Life Diet