Atlas star Simu Liu details everything he eats to stay in action star shape. Breakfast and lunch are pretty standard, but dinner is the time to have some fun with food. Spoiler: there’s lots of seafood. He also talks about how he trained for some of his other iconic roles like Shang Chi.
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00:00I was in a scuba diving movie called Last Breath, preparing for that movie I was underwater
00:05doing multiple dives a day. We're doing night shoots four, five, six hours. You come out of
00:09that and the hunger that you experience emerging from the water is unlike anything you've ever felt
00:15before. I'm not gonna lie to you, that was a lot of fried chicken and gravy and just so much like
00:20sauce and carbs because your body is just like so deprived of energy and it just needs to,
00:26it just needs to fill up. Hi, I'm Simu Liu and today I'm going to show you what my diet looks
00:35like and explain how it informs my training. I think the philosophy behind my diet is don't
00:42lose the joy of eating. I've done and experimented with a lot of diets that quite frankly just don't
00:49taste good and I find that that makes me very grumpy and impossible to deal with. For breakfast,
00:57love an avocado toast with a poached egg on top. We use really high quality whole grain bread
01:04drizzled with some some mila chili crunch just for flavors. Garlic bits in it that really just
01:10goes so nice with the avocado and the egg. If I have time, prepare like a like a smoothie
01:16with some yogurt, some fruit, some spinach is a really great way to hide a lot of really
01:22nutritious food that doesn't really taste like anything which is awesome. So then, you know,
01:27I'll typically work out in the mornings, we'll do like maybe a protein shake after. They make a
01:32matcha milk tea protein shake which is, I think, just amazing and it tastes really good. It tastes
01:39like you're having boba. I think I live a much more joyous life and I think the people around
01:44me are a lot more joyous when I have fun and I have food that tastes good.
01:52For lunch, I'll order something like, you know, takaya or sweet green tender green goop, you know,
01:57air one, something that gives me a nice clean piece of protein like a salmon skirt steak or a
02:04nice juicy piece of chicken. Big fan of buffalo cauliflower, garlic green beans. I am Asian so I
02:12always will want rice in every meal just in some way shape or form. It's a great carb,
02:18makes me feel good. It's like a warm hug and it just fills you up and gives you energy.
02:23Dinner is where I believe that you should have a little fun and often, you know,
02:28we're doing either a dinner meeting or it's a time for you to catch up with friends. So,
02:33you know, I definitely am all about the deliciousness of that meal. I try to limit
02:38red meat as much as I can and I also I'm crazy for seafood. I love fish, I love sushi, I love
02:45lobster, I love shellfish, oysters, everything. So, I'm pretty sure I just named every single
02:50food group just then but I just love good food. I'm working with a nutritionist and physical
02:57trainer right now. His name is Ethan and he's great. I think he's starting to introduce me to
03:01the idea of macros and counting but I also I know I'm just not good at keeping track of it for
03:07myself. I think if somebody were to keep track of it for me, that would be the ideal situation.
03:11It's either somebody keeps track of it for me or it doesn't get kept track of.
03:15I feel like intermittent fasting works quite well naturally with the shooting schedule.
03:21Set hours are long, they're grueling, they're tough but they're also busy so you're not
03:26constantly thinking about it which is nice. To set early in the morning, maybe you're still
03:30waking up or you'll have a water or a coffee. Have your first meal, it might be like 11 or 12,
03:35maybe even later than that. There's kind of a natural meal, six or seven, that'll be it for the
03:40day. Just trying to maximize the enjoyment out of that six-hour window as much as I can.
03:47My favorites, you know, Korean barbecue, hot pot, sushi, noodles. You know, I know some people have
03:53a cheat day. Dinner is my cheat meal. There's a couple roles that I definitely changed my eating
03:58habits for. Action movies like Shang-Chi and Atlas, when you're doing stunts and you're active
04:05constantly, you get hungry so fast and you burn through energy really, really quickly. So I think
04:10you really need to pile on the carbs if you're doing stunts every day and you need energy to
04:13make it through. Otherwise, you're just gonna peter out, you're gonna burn out and like not
04:18have anything left in the tank. I've received a lot of diet advice from co-stars. I don't know that
04:23I'm always following it. I feel like a lot of people are generally more disciplined than me
04:29when it comes to food. And all due respect to everybody else, I just love food. And so it's
04:35about taking the extra step and finding something that's healthy and delicious. And especially when
04:41you're in a great food city like LA or Toronto or London, you know, it's like even harder because
04:48you know all the amazing restaurants that are out there. You just want to eat all of it. You know,
04:54it's a tough one. I'd say definitely the training, you know, depending on the role, sometimes you're
04:57training, you know, four or five, six hours a day. And it's tough on your body. It really is.
05:03Toughest diet I did for a role is probably leading up to Shang-Chi. I was doing an hour
05:10of strength and conditioning and then like four to five hours of stunt rehearsal every single day.
05:15And I was on a meal plan that wasn't accounting for the four to five hours of stunt rehearsal.
05:19It was only designed for the hour of strength and conditioning. And so I was on a massive
05:24caloric deficit. I was losing a ton of weight. I was hungry and tired all the time. My trainer was
05:29like, you should be eating twice the amount that you have been because like we kind of just have
05:35not been factoring in all this other work that you've been doing, which is, you know, very,
05:39very cardio heavy and that stuff makes you hungry. I like to have a meal with Ken because
05:48I don't know what Ken eats. I don't know that Ken has a digestive system. Although now that I think
05:53of it, I don't think Harlan from Atlas has a digestive system either. They're both kind of
05:57not human in a way. Vegemite, not my favorite. I just, it's so pungent and so incredibly salty.
06:06It's not my, it's not my thing. Go-to comfort food, soup dumplings, fried chicken.
06:13Secret to a really good protein shake, um, matcha. That's tough. It would be like a tuna belly,
06:22like a sashimi or a sushi, or it would be like, like really, really good Korean barbecue.
06:29Last meal that I cooked for a date. That would be a very, very long time ago. Not since I've had a
06:34date, since I've, since I've cooked for a date. Um, what did I make? I probably made like some
06:42sort of a vegetable stir fry with some noodles. Cause I feel like that's what I'm most confident
06:48in. That's my go-to. Smooth, smooth, definitely smooth. I love to dip my pizza crust in like a
06:58garlic or like a ranch, something creamy. Oh, that's an interesting question. Jollibee fried
07:04chicken. Jollibee fried chicken? No, I think it'd probably be Korean barbecue. The best food smell
07:11in the world is the smell of my parents' dumplings. I have a dumpling company called
07:16Mila that ships soup dumplings right to your door. You steam them yourself and they're flavorful.
07:22So, so delicious. Yes. I always lay a towel down though. In and out order, double double animal
07:30style with grilled onions and banana peppers, animal fries, and a vanilla milkshake and a diet
07:38Coke. The most important thing is getting yourself to the gym. Don't get caught up in like, what is
07:44the ideal workout? What is the, what is the macro? How do I optimize? It's just getting your butt
07:49there. That's already 75% of the battle. Give yourself a lot of grace and just challenge yourself
07:54to show up.