SAG-AFTRA members are currently on strike; as part of the strike, union actors are not promoting their film and TV projects. This interview was conducted prior to the strike.
Method Man has been a culture-wide icon for more than three decades, but while the Wu-Tang member performed at the Grammy’s during the 50 Years of Hip-Hop tribute, he’s largely stepped away from a full-time career in music. The Wu-Tang Clan is on tour this summer, and while Method Man said that he’ll still pop in from time to time, he’s now mainly focused on acting
That, and hitting the gym. GQ caught up with him about everything from the exact weight he’s benching to his Chick-Fil-A order.
For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
GQ: I think anyone who follows you on Instagram knows that you stay healthy. What does that look like for you?
Method Man: Well, for the past 10 years I've been following my macros—a macronutrient diet—split up in like percentages catered for my body type. So it’s counting only like fats, proteins, carbs, fiber, but sometimes fiber counts as carbs. I supplement with D3s, spirulina, fish oil, collagen, CLA—and there’s no food restrictions or time restrictions.
How do you determine how many macros you should be getting for your body?
My macro intake—I get about 4,500 calories a day and I base my macro intake off of that.
Do you work with a nutritionist or trainer?
Under Armour has this app called MyFitnessPal and it tracks everything for you—all I need is a small food scale. And I take my scale everywhere.
Like on the road with you?
Yes, it stays in my backpack. I have about six of them now. It’s challenging, especially being on the road, but the fact that I’m just doing macros and I’m following a calorie intake helps me stay pretty true to my food science. It’s all numbers.
What’s breakfast? What’s lunch?
I’m not a breakfast guy, so that would be a meal replacement, mostly. Three scoops of protein, mostly ISO Dymatize.
And then from there, an hour and a half before my workout I’ll have a scoop of carbo, some aminos, that’s when I take my CLA and one teaspoon of creatine. That’s my kind of pre-workout. Carbs give you strength, and you want to be as strong and as aware as you want to be when you’re inside and you want to push for that extra rep. It helps a lot.
Yeah, I’ve definitely seen Instagram videos you’ve posted where you’re lifting the approximate weight of a small village, so I guess this drink is partially to thank.
Yeah, I can lift about three 5’4” people at the same time.
So what all are you doing at the gym?
We do a body part a day—it works for me. As far as shoulders, everything is 10 reps and better. We do about five different workouts for shoulders, and that’s Monday. Tuesday is back. That’s when I do my deadlifts and we go heavy. We do five sets, five reps.
How much weight?
Well, my max is 500. It’s an ego lift. You just want to gauge how strong you are, and I’m pretty freaking strong, man.
Wednesday is all chest day. Now, for the chest workout, we start with bench. I get it, a lot of the OGs that work out, they don’t even bench anymore cause it weighs a lot on your joints and gives you shoulder pain and things of that nature. For me, I love bench and I’m glad I’m still young at it. You know, I’ve been doing this for about 15 years and it’s been working for me. My max on the bench right now is 335, which is tremendous for me. We do five sets, five reps.
We’ve been changing the workout up, now we’re not doing as much strength training as high repetition training. So now when we do shoulders, 10 sets and 10 reps of the shoulder press, and we’re going up each set. The real test is on Wednesday when we do high repetition for the chest, because that’s bench press for 10 sets and 15 reps. Now, when I tell you—that is very, very hard.
Then we do legs. Leg day is every Thursday. We do not skip legs. We do not want the Johnny Bravo body. I learned over the years, because I wouldn't do leg day: I was scared and I figured I’d hurt myself. But I’ve been doing legs for about 12 years, and no lie, between deadlifting and squats, that's what made my bench press and everything else go up as far as strength. When you have a strong core, everything else just maximizes off of that core.
When we do our leg day, it’s very intense. Anybody can tell you that not too many people could survive our leg day, but I know there are plenty of others out there that are way harder than ours. It’s always high-repetition on leg day. We’ve been going backwards. We start with what we’d end with, and then our last exercise would be squats, which are tough. Anybody will tell you squats are tough. My max on squats is 315 for three reps, so we’re definitely not skipping leg day over here.
Then Friday is fun day—that’s arm day. Everything is 15 reps or higher on Friday. That's the rundown. I’m not doing anything that anybody who is absolutely a gym rat or stays in the gym a lot isn’t doing. Everybody has their own technique what they do that works for them, and this works for me. But anybody who’s been in the gym—the stuff that I just told you is tried and true.
I notice you keep saying “we” do this. Are you going with a trainer or with friends?
Friends. I’ve picked up tips and things over the years from different meatheads, that’s what I like to call them, you know they give you tips. They see you there, and if you’re doing something wrong or something you could hurt yourself doing, they’ll teach you form. They’ll show you a new type of workout to challenge yourself—there’s always levels to it, man.
Anybody that says they’re trying to get toned…toned? I don’t know what toned is. Anybody that works out knows that “toned” is a word that people use who don't naturally workout a lot. If anything, you’re trying to be more defined, you’re trying to challenge yourself everyday. I’m sorry, I sound like a real fucking gym rat myself.
I think you are. I think you’ve just gotta lean into it.
The whole purpose of working out is the contraction and the resistance between you and your contraction. That’s all I focus on when I’m at the gym is the contraction, my form, my squeeze and then that stretch, and then that squeeze. You can’t go wrong with that.
How long does this take each day?
We’re in there ‘til we finish our workout. Minimum of two hours.
Now are you on tour this summer? How will this look on the road?
I’m not on tour, actually. Wu Tang is on tour, yes, but me… I make dates that I can make, but acting is first position as far as my career goes. The fellas totally understand that. You never know what date I might pop up at.
I just realized for food we didn’t get past breakfast. What’s lunch and dinner?
I take another shake. My diet is pretty free. I can eat whatever I want as long as I weigh it. Right now, my favorite is tacos—who doesn’t love tacos? I do lean ground beef, or I use ground turkey. I’m on the fence about the turkey because it’s just as bad as beef in terms of fats and things like that, so I pick and choose.
Chicken you can never go wrong with: It’s higher in protein and lean, but I’m tired of chicken. But I found a quick fix, especially on the road: Chick-fil-A is tops on the menu. I’m very limited though, because my Chick-fil-A order is the same. The people at the Staten Island Mall can vouch for that, because I get the same thing every time I go.
Let’s hear it!
Three eight pieces! Three eight-piece nuggets.
Regular or grilled?
Regular, I can’t stand those grilled ones. And I kid you not, my weight stays exactly where it’s supposed to be. I still get my results.
Now, in the future, I’m hoping to cut back on the shakes—the meal replacements—and have actual food. I tried that before but I couldn't finish all of it. I get a lot of carbs and it’s kind of tough to keep up sometimes. Picture four bowls of rice. Four! It’s absurd, right? So shakes help a lot, but hopefully I can work my way to my four bowls of rice and do it all with just food.
Now, let me ask you an important Chick-fil-A question here: Are you getting a sauce with these nuggets?
I never get the sauce outside of the Texas Pete hot sauce, no. I can have it, but that takes away from the other types of carbs I want, which are Jelly Bellies and things like that. Jelly Bellies are my carb of choice. I mean, if I can have it, why not? It’s also OK to have a doughnut. With my diet, I can have the nuggets and still get one Krispy Kreme doughnut—not two—one.
As a Georgian, I’m very proud that you just named two very Southern things.
Oh, come on now—people know people in the South can cook!
I wanted to ask you—on Kevin Hart's podcast that you did recently, you spoke a bit about depression. How have you dealt with that?
Anybody that gets depressed knows that it never fully just goes away and it can pop up at any time. I deal with my anxieties in different ways. Mostly, the fact that I’m a creative and I can write or draw or read—that helps. It doesn’t always fix it, but it does help. I think work and keeping myself occupied helps as well. And genuinely finding reasons to love myself even more every day.
I haven’t stepped into meditation yet, but probably when I retire. I might have a breakdown on set or something if I start meditating, man—there’s a lot of things in there. I think a lot of my anxieties and things will be relieved when I actually write my book of my life story. I think everyone that’s done something relevant in their lives should write a book about their life. Even for family members just to know that you were here.