Henry Cavill is a very beefy man. Are you into that? I’m not. I’ve moved beyond “being attracted to string beans” but there’s something about giant, veiny arms and necks which sort of leave me cold. When Chris Hemsworth, John Cena or Henry Cavill go Full Beef, I’m just like “eh.” Plus, I’m starting to really believe that many of the guys who “bulk up” for roles are using steroids and that’s also pretty gross. Anyway, I guess I believe that Henry Cavill keeps fit the all-natural way, through hard work at the gym and through crazy body-building supplements. Cavill is actually the Chief Creative Director of MuscleTech, a supplement company he swears by. To promote MuscleTech, Cavill gave a surprisingly lengthy interview to People Magazine. Some highlights:
Becoming a late-in-life gym rat: “When I was in school I played sports. I wasn’t the most spectacular physical specimen back then, but I definitely had drive. I was doing a lot of martial arts and bodyweight exercises [for ‘The Immortals’] because it was apt for the character. And the first time I really moved into lifting weights properly was for Man of Steel.”
The evolution of his fitness journey: “It’s evolved and developed in its own way depending on the characters that I’ve played or what I’ve had access to — the facilities, where I’ve wanted to go with my body and what I’ve wanted to do…. I will do a lot of body building work for an aesthetic look for a project or a role,” he says, adding that he focuses on different body parts on different days.
He had a hamstring injury in December: “When I look back, I realize, yes, it was a hard time. I think one of the skills I’ve picked up over the years is just forging ahead regardless of difficulty or hard work or trials and tribulations. So when the hamstring injury came, I tried to look at the silver lining. It was like, ‘Ok. I was working insane hours and it was exhausting and I now physically can’t work because I’m on crutches.’ So I was focusing more on taking the time off and going, how can I best heal myself? When it comes to my mental health, [I] focus on what I can control and work on that. And that gives me something to work towards rather than something to deal with or work through or manage my life through.”
He’s working on sprinting now. “I want to build a better engine,” says Cavill, who has partnered with MuscleTech supplement company. “One of the things my physical therapy for my hamstring showed me was that I have a lot of capacity in my engine but I have not accessed it. And it’s something which I really want to build upon.”
Nutrition: “Fuel is extremely important. My diet at the moment is more maintenance because I don’t have any shirtless scenes coming up. Breakfast is a scoop and a half of 100-percent grass-fed whey protein with a cup and a half of oats and berries blended with water, plus a two-egg omelette with two turkey rashers and 4 ounces of beef filet. Three hours later I’ll have 6 ounces of chicken breast with white rice, and three hours after that, another 6 ounces of chicken breast with brown rice. Three hours after that I’ll have 5 ounces of filet of beef with sweet potato.” Before bed, he’ll have another protein shake.
One cheat meal a week: “It all depends on location and what I’m feeling. One of the great things about cheat meals is that you’ll probably be thinking about it for a week and once you get there, it’ll be an excited order of a pizza or Indian food or it will be a Sunday roast which I’ll cook to make an event out of it.”
The Stoic: “I’ve been dabbling in stoicism. I like some of the core tenets: Don’t let that what you can’t control affect you, don’t let it affect your mental state. Only worry about the things that you can control.”
His diet made me want to cry, honestly. I love chicken and I love rice but to eat that same heavy-protein diet supplemented with all of those protein shakes and stuff… ugh. The thought of it makes me ill. But it seems authentic to who Henry Cavill is too – like, I totally believe he’s that guy who is super-structured about gym time and meals and when he has to eat what and setting those fitness goals. Meanwhile, I like to take long walks. The fresh air makes me feel great. I also like frappes and fried chicken and I would probably barf if you tried to get me to drink one of those protein shakes.
Photos courtesy of MuscleTech’s Instagram and Henry Cavill’s Instagram.
He is insanely hot in the Witcher.
Definitely his best role.
Not into him normally , but with that Witcher wig….do what you must…
For what it is worth, I use MuscleSport BCAA post workout because I do Orangetheory every morning and it’s helps my muscle recovery and every flavor is really good and I’m not aching every time I get out of the bed. I don’t do the pre-workout stuff because it makes me feel like I am vibrating like a hummingbird, but support whatever helps people live their healthiest life possible. Cheers celebitches!
ohhhh I do OTF also, and have been going almost every day. I will look into this since I have been waking up quite sore. Even with pre and post stretching. Thank you!!
fellow OTF’er here. I will look into this too. When I go back to back days, I sometimes get the soreness so I think this will be helpful! Thanks 🙂
I’m not into the beefy look either, but damn that is a fine man to look at. I noticed him in The Tudors and OMG.
Same! I generally like men who are tall but on the leaner side (à la Tom Hiddleston, for example) but Cavill is so freaking gorgeous that I tend to ignore the beefiness. It’s too bad he can be kind of a d*ck when he opens his mouth to speak.
Yes, I agree. But sometimes, we don’t need them to talk 😉
Some fried chicken and a frappe sounds good right now…
Totally fits with a Taurus power dude. My husband is one, too, and he’s as natural as it gets: all vegan, never even considers touching steroids or any of that crap. He’s got his supplements and foods down to an art, but still has wiggle room for eating what he wants, when he wants. All that structure pays off for him.
All I could think of is how constipating that diet must be! Supplements and Senecol!
This. Tiny amount of fruit and vegies, and zero green ones? It sounds so awful, but maybe this is just for short bursts, when he really needs to bulk up?
Or like me, protein shakes give me the liquid poops
His farts must be toxic 💨💀
Lol
Popeye on steroids. No mention of his racist ex or his gross comments on the all white Oscars or the MeToo-movement.
@ros — Just out of curiousity, how many years have to go by before a person is no longer responsible for what their ex says or does? I know I definitely wouldn’t want to have to answer for things someone did years after we broke up…
Lol, I find Henry and his partners are so fishy too! Isn’t his current boo got caught in a blackface situation a while ago?! I cant keep up anymore 🤣
Seriously, what? She’s his EX. They dated briefly 10 YEARS AGO.
He really is so handsome and I used to LOVE him but I just cannot stand the man now. So weird.
The “I pick things up and put them down” look is not attractive. Give me lean A. Skarsgard all day. No seriously give me Skarsgard
Totally the wrong Skargsård tho, give me Gustaf any day.
Genuine question…..how does his body cope with no vegetables or fruit?
No differently than a person on any other low carb, low sugar eating routine. I have no doubts those supplements he uses have the vitamins and fiber to make up for what he’s losing by not eating a lot of veggies.
such little fruit or veg! supplements cant replace actual fruits or veg though.
This was my same question. In addition to green veggies, you cannot do one of these diets without having a decent daily amount of fiber. I know from experience.
Whey protein and beef are seriously killing the Amazon. These muscle bros who are beefing up purely for aesthetics (which is really what this is, there is NO health benefit to carrying so much extra muscle) really disgust me.
Totally. Plus his arteries are going to be so clogged with that meat fat 🤦🏽♀️
I mean, doesn’t that depend in where he gets his meat from? It’s so easy to buy local these days, and most meat consumed in the UK is domestic anyway. Very little of their total beef consumption is imported from outside the EU, even less from Argentina, so drawing a causal link between Henry Cavill’s meat consumption and Amazon deforestation is really grasping.
It doesn’t matter where the beef is from, beef cattle use up a disproportionately vast amount of forested land and the cheaper countries can sell it the more land becomes deforested. The UK used to be a land of forests, now most of it has been cut down for farming. Billions of acres of jungle in the Amazon, which is basically the air filter/climate control for the planet, are being eradicated. When trees are cut down, tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere — trees in the Amazon rainforest hold 48 billion tons of carbon. So, when trees are cut down, it’s a double whammy on climate change — more carbon dioxide is released and less is absorbed. Deforestation also alters rainfall patterns, creating deserts out of previously healthy environments. To say deforestation is “really grasping” is completely naive and uninformed.
I appreciate the deforestation remedial course, but I never said that deforestation is “really grasping”. The OP drew a direct line from Henry Cavill’s meat consumption to *Amazon* deforestation. I realize that the phenomenon of logging trees for agriculture isn’t limited to the rainforests of S America, but Cavill gnawing on a Hereford steak is not the biggest threat here. Your point about these countries selling it cheaply is moot if it’s not being imported by the country where said meat consumption is happening in the first place — the UK imports a whopping 1 percent of its beef from Brazil. If he said that he ate salmon or tofu at every meal, I doubt people would be clutching their pearls about the environmental havoc wreaked by soy production for salmon feed or the monocultures that arise in order to support many of our vegan staples. And it absolutely matters where the beef is coming from. I live in a country with very little arable land. Hardy cattle breeds, however, can scale the steep mountainsides and turn otherwise completely unavailable land into calories. It’s one of the most sustainable ways we can produce food and is becoming increasing popluar. Does this necessarily apply to the English countryside? I would guess not, based on my knowledge of the topography of the British isles. But the forests of England are at their highest land cover percentage since the last 1000 years, so modern agriculture isn’t the primary culprit here (and is it agriculture in general or just beef you have an issue with? The two seem to get conflated.) If you really want to point fingers you should look to the navy and ship building industries in the early half of the 20 c. So yes, context matters, and yes, Amazon deforestation here is grasping.
@Jaded – all good points. But one of the things that bothers me about some people’s environmentalism is that we focus on fixing the problems and we don’t do the hard work in our own backyards. I support preserving these areas of biodiversity (I avoid palm oil and its derivatives and avocados for example) but how many homeowners in America abstain from using fertilizers and pesticides? How many spread compost? – proven to feed the soil microbiome and sequester carbon. Right in our own lawns!! How many have planted permaculture foods in their yards? How many have planted native perennial beds so that our insects and birds have habitat and food? We frequently put the onus on preserving biodiversity somewhere elsewhere.
@pamplemousse – Thank you. And regenerative farming requires cattle. (Just not in the Amazon, not that you were suggesting it).
@Betsy, really important point. It’s one of the things that I find endlessly frustrating about environmental protection in my country. We donate billions of dollars to rainforest protection in countries far away, boycott palm oil and almond milk, and endlessly criticize big ag practices in the U.S. and South America. All the while razing our own forests to make way for luxury cabin developments. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s seriously one of the most pressing environmental issues here. We’re more than happy to stand up for the environment, unless it interferes with being able to buy a second (or third) property.
Pretty sure England cut down most of its forests during its centuries of exploration & colonization—had to use something to build all those ships. That’s how they came to exploit our land’s resources.
I found him so hot on The Tudors. Once he started beefing up for Superman, all the attraction I had for him disappeared. He looked like a real life Lego figure. All his mojo oozed out and I don’t understand what happened.
His only vegetables are sweet potatoes? I got my parents eating veggies every day and they’re both over 80 with minor health problems–and it makes me laugh whenever my mama says, “We had avocado toast for dinner, and it was so delicious!”
Not only is this diet really unsustainable, it is also terrible for his health. It has been proven that a meat diet is terrible for blood circulation and the heart. Fibre is also needed (and no supplement can supplement that). Also a man beefed up like this only tells me how terribly unavailable he must be because this is a high maintenance routine. Nothing attractive about this for me.
This^^^. Mr. Muscle & Fitness / Flex. It’s mostly muscle and the aesthetics of overly developed muscle. It’s bodybuilding. It’s pumping iron. I’ll give him credit, he’s dedicated. It’s incredibly time consuming, you’re watching you diet constantly, eating a regulated 6-7 times a day, working out, and then “dryng out” to show the shred of the shirtless scenes. This is all consuming to the exclusion of most things, bodies, and minds, except his own.
I agree for regular people in real life. And as a result, when I see actors chasing this look it makes those men less appealing, interesting to me.
But I can see a performer (actor, dancer) have a regimen like that when they are preparing for and working a particular role that requires* that physique … that’s part of maintaining, using the tools of their trade (aka their bodies) similar to sitting for hours in a makeup chair or spending hours doing voice or movement training for a role.
* whether some of these roles really ‘require’ these thick-necked muscle-bound physiques to portray strong masculine characters is a whole ‘nother question worthy of its own deep dive.
Also if he’s making money off selling this stuff to dudes and other folk who aren’t about to reprise their roles as godlike beings from other planets he’s going to get a giant side eye from me like the one I give Tom Brady for
his supplement / plan tools side businesses.
I don’t mind beefy but I’m out when it gets to that dehydration for definition thing they do for their shirtless scenes. It is not appealing.
I generally love him and if you watch his other videos he is so nerdy about his fitness and I really admire that. (Also, hot in the Witcher!)
I’m not saying for sure about him but isn’t it basically an open secret that all of these guys who bulked up for Marvel or other big films are doing it with ‘cycling’ or steroid type things or doctor supervised T injections to help? Not saying they don’t work hard, I’m sure they work very very hard, but it doesn’t even seem like a secret anymore about the other aspects that help…
What an unhealthy diet. Where are fruits and vegetables? Complex carbs? Sorry but eating that way simply to get beefed is asking for trouble down the road. The husband of a good friend of mine went on a similar diet and exercise craze some years ago to buff up and after a few years he ended up in hospital with IBS and diverticular disease. He was almost at the point where he would have had to have a colostomy. The doctor immediately got him on a diet that included whole grains, fruit and vegetables. He’s not so buffed now but he’s far more healthy.
I am not into the weightlifter look either. I’ve never cared that much about things like washboard abs. Sure, I like men to be in reasonably good shape and look healthy, but the face matters more to me.
He was better looking before, like in The Tudors.
Love him in the Witcher, but just reading about all that protein he eats makes me want to take a shit right now. All that would make me feel so full and bloated. But I am a 5 foot woman …sooo
I love ’em beefy. Love a beefy booty and thighs. Send him my way!!!
I like ’em rock-star skinny. 🙂 I do not like a man with a big can. 🙂
I noticed all those pics are waist up or head shots. I really hope HC isn’t skipping leg day.
I can’t relate to anyone who can follow such an incredibly strict and unvarying routine. To spend your entire week looking forward to a cheat meal? It just sounds so sad. I have a friend who started what is basically a keto diet and she has to eat essentially the exact same thing every day, and on the exact same schedule, or she freaks out a bit because she’s so sure it will derail her weight loss. To me, it’s just another form of disordered eating.
I think it’s a type of disordered eating as well. This whole Keto thing has gotten out of hand. I too have a friend who has gone on and off Keto — she’ll lose weight, then start eating normally (which is A LOT) and gain it all back again. That type of yoyo weight loss/gain is so dangerous to your health. I keep telling her it’s all about eating a variety of healthy food groups where portion control is key, but she keeps eating enough for 3 people, then it’s back to Keto. *SIGH*
Well, Orthorexia does frequently manifest in this manner, as do many kinds of generalized disordered eating. Usually it has to get to the point where it is actively and obviously harming a person’s physical, social, or mental health before you can diagnose, though.
Those protein supplement farts though
Pheweeee and you never want to go to the bathroom after they have evacuated for at least an hour, those body builder poops make Skunk spray smell like Chanel No5
That diet especially all those supplements is so bad long term for your digestive tract an slowly poison your liver and kidneys
I honestly think he looks a lot better without the steroid muscles but okay, to each his own. I bet most men think this is the perfect body and this is what women go for, which is kinda hilarious. In fact I’ve never met any woman in my life who said “omg Schwarzenegger man, my favorite body type”. Never, lol. I don’t get this obsession with looking so unnaturally pumped-up. The male Kardashian version of body proportion exaggerations. At least his isn’t surgery.
I think Cavill mentioned that he was chubby as a child. I could totally get the appeal of regimented eating and activity from that end of things. Might be that he feels more comfortable with a larger frame and building muscle is the more socially acceptable method of being larger than building fat.
It makes sense to me in that regard eventhough the bulked up look doesn’t really appeal to me. It seems to make sense that that’s why he does it (though that’s somewhat speculative on my part, lol). I wish him the best healthwise – mental and physical, I guess – and hope he keeps any future trash opinions to himself.