Jorge Garcia, the actor and comedian best known for his role as Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the hit series Lost, has captivated audiences not only with his acting talent but also with his inspiring weight loss journey. Having struggled with weight issues since childhood, Garcia's transformation has been a testament to his dedication to a healthier lifestyle. From consuming a protein-rich diet to incorporating regular cardio, Garcia's story is one of perseverance and positive change.
Who is Jorge Garcia?
An American actor and comedian, Jorge Garcia, a Nebraska native, stepped into the entertainment industry with his performance in the television show Becker (1998) as Hector Lopez. He garnered significant recognition for his role as Hugo “Hurley” Reyes in the series Lost (2004-2010). He also appeared in the 2010 series, Hawaii Five-0. In 2012, Garcia appeared in the FOX series Alcatraz. Among his other works, his latest performance was in the Netflix original movie The Ridiculous 6 (2015).
Early Struggles and Initial Weight Loss
Garcia's weight has been a lifelong challenge. At one point, he weighed around 400 lbs and was reportedly asked to shed some pounds prior to the production of his show Lost. As followed by his fans and followers, he reportedly initiated shedding weight for his role in the series Lost, wherein his character demanded the look of someone stranded on a deserted island. In 2006, he managed to lose 30 pounds, demonstrating his initial commitment to improving his health. Garcia then lost 30 pounds but couldn't sustain it and gained weight again.
The Turning Point: A Commitment to Change
Despite initial setbacks, Garcia didn't lose hope. Around 2016, driven by concerns for his health, he embarked on a more significant weight loss journey. This time he reportedly lost almost 100 pounds. This transformation involved adopting a healthier lifestyle, including dietary changes and regular exercise.
Diet and Nutrition
During his major transformation, he is said to have been following the Nooch diet that relies on deactivated yeast, along with consuming vegetables like broccoli, carrot, and spinach, and increased protein. While not much has been stated about the weight-loss benefits of deactivated nutritional yeast, it is reported that yeast hydrolysate can assist obese people (1). A protein-packed diet is recommended for weight loss, as it enhances satiety and reduces fat mass (2). Garcia's diet played a crucial role in his weight loss. He reportedly followed the "Nooch diet," incorporating deactivated yeast along with vegetables like broccoli, carrot, and spinach, and increased protein. He also focused on lean protein sources such as fish, chicken, and turkey. Garcia's plate consisted of fibrous foods like fruits and vegetables, as he significantly avoided junk, fried, oily, and other high-calorie foods. Avoiding sugary foods and drinks, along with alcohol was a vital part of his transformation journey. Cutting off sugar and sweet beverages and food from your diet will significantly aid in tackling obesity and reducing the risk of obesity-related diseases. (3)
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Workout Routine
Garcia's weight loss efforts extended beyond diet. He incorporated a blend of varied workout styles of high and low intensities. In order to target the fat cells in his body, Garcia combined weight training with cardiovascular exercises. Primarily his functional exercises included arm circles, waist, neck, and shoulder rotations, and push-ups. Keeping things spiced up he managed a blend of styles, for cardio he opted for cycling, running up and down the stairs, and other exercises for the lower body. Besides these, he focused on breathing exercises too. He worked with professional trainers to create a personalized plan that kept him on track to lose weight and achieve a fitter body. He has candidly shared about his new healthy lifestyle over interviews. From intense workouts - three hours per day - to strictly refraining from consuming alcohol, a lot of factors contributed to his weight loss.
Addressing Misconceptions
While Garcia's transformation impressed many, some speculated that he underwent gastric bypass surgery. However, Garcia has openly discussed his journey, emphasizing that his weight loss was achieved through lifestyle changes, not surgery. His transformation was full of challenges but resorting to surgery was not one of Garcia’s choices.
The "Lost" Years and Hurley's Portrayal
Looking back at Garcia's role as Hurley in Lost, it's important to consider the context of the early 2000s, a time marked by a heightened awareness of weight and its perceived implications. In the fall of 2004, audiences watched with rapt attention as Dr. Jack Shephard (played by Matthew Fox), wanted fugitive Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), and 69 other survivors of a plane crash stumbled around a mysterious island trying to make sense of what had just happened. Over the course of six seasons, we learned about the past lives and anguish of dozens of characters-many of whom had unwittingly crossed paths with one another-and how these experiences colored their interactions.
Hugo Reyes, best known as Hurley, was easily the most virtuous member of this troubled group. Played by relative newcomer Jorge Garcia, he was compassionate, honest, and humble-almost to a fault. Hurley eventually became one of the show’s heroes and most beloved characters, but the show put him through hell to get there.
Every Lost character had an albatross: Jack struggled with a savior complex; Kate had to overcome her vigilante past. Hurley believed that he was cursed-a barrage of bad luck befell him after he won the lottery. Perhaps if Garcia had looked like the rest of the cast, the emotional punishment Hurley faced might not have been as notable. But he was Lost’s sole fat lead character-and not only did Hurley have to endure a litany of suffering; he also had to overcome writing that frequently stereotyped him because of his body. Revisiting the show 20 years after its premiere makes that both more apparent and more distressing.
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Controversial Tropes
Among Lost’s most degrading tropes was Hurley’s obsession with junk food. Realistically, everyone on the island should have been thrilled to discover a supply of processed food in Season 2, after they’d been marooned for weeks. Yet Hurley was the only one who obsessed over it-and later started hoarding it for himself. (In flashbacks, Hurley was typically shown eating unhealthy food, including a whole bucket of his beloved fried chicken at the fast-food franchise he bought with his lottery money.) In contrast, the other survivors were usually seen eating fruit or fish. The implication of these moments, in retrospect, was that Hurley was uniquely flawed because of his diet and his size. Fatness has long been culturally equated with a lack of discipline and self-control-a popular and harmful myth-and through Hurley’s arc, the show regularly reinforced that notion.
Art reflects the social norms of the era in which it’s made, and the early-to-mid-2000s marked the height of a moral panic about weight. Fat people were stigmatized by hit movies and shows such as Shallow Hal and The Biggest Loser (the latter of which premiered one month after Lost). A popular trend in media coverage of obesity was using zoomed-in images of fat people that showed only their bodies, a technique that researchers have found encourages fatphobic beliefs. Comedians often mined fatness for humor-and that included Hurley’s. At the 2011 Golden Globes, the host, Ricky Gervais, made a crude, insulting joke about the series finale: “From what I can make out, the fat one ate them all.” Truthfully, it wasn’t far from a line that one of Lost’s own characters might have lobbed at Hurley.
Throughout the series, Sawyer (Josh Holloway), a surly con man, made fun of the other islanders-but he never taunted anyone more than he did Hurley. Among the dozens of names Sawyer called him were Lardo, Stay Puft, Jabba, Deep-Dish, and Jumbotron. The writing made clear that the name-calling-and his many selfish actions-was Sawyer’s response to his childhood trauma; he alienated himself from everyone else, believing he could go it alone. But although the nicknames were designed to reveal Sawyer’s psychology, the sheer number of them directed at Hurley compounded other troubling choices for Hurley’s storyline.
The show, for instance, pathologized his fatness. In the Season 2 episode “Dave,” we learned that Hurley was institutionalized before ending up on the island. In a flashback, his therapist told him that he uses food as a trauma response, born out of his misplaced guilt that his weight was responsible for two people’s death: He had stepped onto an overcrowded deck that collapsed. It wasn’t actually his fault, however; nearly three times more people than recommended were already standing on the deck. His therapist assuaged Hurley’s fears about his weight’s impact, but the writing validated his shame. During his in-patient treatment, he began hallucinating an imaginary friend called Dave, who encouraged him to eat junk food and “stay fat” instead of trying to shed pounds; Hurley would later conclude that Dave was a negative influence, preventing him from changing-code for dieting. Hurley’s mental illness was thus explicitly tied to his weight, a reductive understanding of a link that research suggests is far more complex.
Lost also perpetuated the damaging trope that Hurley’s size made him unlovable. In the same episode in which the show introduced Dave, we learned that Hurley had developed feelings for Libby (Cynthia Watros), another survivor. Although she didn’t have a problem with his size-seeing him for the kind, generous person he was-Hurley felt undeserving of affection unless he made himself smaller. Sure enough, he was on a fish-and-water diet by the following episode. Even after stranding him on an island, Lost insisted that he punish himself for his fatness: Hurley performed the role of “good fatty,” using his attempts at weight loss to earn social acceptance. All of this became moot when, an episode later, Libby was shot and killed. In short order, Hurley quickly lost the one person on the island who had embraced him unconditionally, leaving him alone to wallow in his self-loathing.
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Hurley’s suffering did lessen as the show went on, and he slowly became one of its strongest, most sympathetic leads. After enduring another tragic death at Season 3’s close, he demonstrated resilience, reacting to the loss with vulnerability rather than vengeance. Unlike many other survivors, and especially the men, he was never consumed by resentment; he even forgave Libby’s killer. Perhaps most poignant, Jack-who had been the survivors’ de facto leader (and Lost’s primary lead)-entrusted Hurley with the duty of protecting the island in the show’s final episode. The fortitude, wisdom, and humanity of Hurley’s later-season characterization helped ameliorate the writing’s earlier efforts to undermine him-although these developments didn’t undo that history.
Hurley’s selflessness and clear principles endeared him to Lost fans, as they did to his fellow survivors on the show. (Some took longer than others to warm up to him, however; although their relationship greatly improved over the seasons, Sawyer still couldn’t resist calling Hurley “Bigfoot” in the finale.) By Lost’s end, Hurley’s trajectory from loser to leader had established him as the show’s moral compass. And yet, in a vision of a “happy ending” for him shown in an earlier episode, he is “eating his feelings” and asking Libby why she likes someone who looks the way he does. It was as though his binging on food and his insecurity were essential traits.
Lost’s approach to Hurley wasn’t consistently cruel or lazy; Hurley didn’t exist solely for laughs. Fans remember him for his personal growth and ability to overcome adversity. But even those who worked on the show came to acknowledge the negligence behind Hurley’s story-albeit decades after Lost premiered. This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
A More Recent Transformation
On Thursday, however, he made a rare public appearance as he attended the Warner Bros. Television Group's Fall TV Season Celebration in Los Angeles. However, he looked virtually unrecognisable as he sported a new look, having lost a considerable amount of weight after adopting a plant based diet in a bid to slim down.
Making a rare red carpet appearance, Jorge looked unrecognisable 19 years after starring in the ABC series as Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes. Sporting a slimmer figure, he donned a single-breasted grey suit, teamed with a blue patterned shirt. The star finished his look with a pair of shiny black shoes as he posed for snaps on the red carpet.
The last time the actor made a red carpet appearance was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the series and the premiere of Magnum P.I. at Queen's Surf Beach in September 2018 in Waikiki, Hawaii. He now typically enjoys a quiet life away from the spotlight with wife Rebecca Birdsall, who he met on the Five-O set.
Vegan Diet
Five years ago, he decided to go vegan, removing all animal-based products from his diet. Thanks to the strict diet and workout plan, Jorge reportedly lost almost 100lbs from his 400lb frame.
At his heaviest in 2014, it was reported that a source close to the actor said that his loved ones were 'terrified' of him dying if he didn't shift his lifestyle. Jorge's friend told the National Enquirer: 'We're talking Type 2 diabetes or, worse, a heart attack,' They continued: 'No one wants to see that happen to him.''Jorge is one of the nicest, gentlest souls you'd ever meet, but he just can't keep the pounds off,' the source added.
Lessons Learned
Jorge Garcia's weight loss journey is filled with setbacks and challenges. His major transformation was when he lost around 100 pounds through a strict, high-fiber, and high-protein diet, coupled with a variety of cardiovascular exercises and muscle-related workouts. His motivation to lose weight made him burn calories successfully, and his story serves as a reminder that to achieve fitness goals, we need to make some hard choices and be persistent. Like any other weight loss transformation, Jorge Garcia's weight loss journey was full of ordeals and challenges. Being overweight since childhood, he struggled with obesity and its side effects. While it came across as unbelievable news to his fans, they were too quick to assume that Garcia underwent a gastric bypass surgery.