Inside Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Weight Loss Journey

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s name is practically synonymous with massive muscles. So when he stepped out with a visibly slimmer physique at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival, the internet went a little wild with speculation about what happened to his Herculean body.  

The former WWE star and football player has yet to comment on any weight loss rumors. But Johnson has been historically vocal about the hard work required to build — and maintain — his large, chiseled frame. Especially when a role has required him to go bigger. 

“My goal was to bring in the best physique of my career,” he told Men’s Health in a November 2022 interview for his film Black Adam. “When you have that suit on, every detail shows. Man, it was constant work, constant tweaking, tweaking, tweaking for months.” 

Playing UFC fighter Mark Kerr in the 2025 film The Smashing Machine was no different. In May 2024, Johnson admitted to his Instagram followers that training in combat sports and MMA was “a whole new world,” adding: “I’ve been working my a– off, this is truly a team effort to be able to do something like this.”

From his blockbuster training routine to his famous cheat meals, here’s everything Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has said about his health.

He ate up to 8,000 calories a day at one point

The Rock has been built on years of well-balanced meals — and a lot of them. Johnson reportedly ate between 6,000 and 8,000 calories a day when he was at the peak of his wrestling career.

Now, his meals are spread out between six a day, according to interviews with Men’s Health and Delish. He also works with multiple nutrition experts to make sure those meals meet his “very specific” macronutrient requirements. Doing so has allowed him to see results quickly without hunger pains.

“My philosophy is to eat clean and make sure that my diet is commensurate with my goals, which stay consistent throughout the year,” the Moana star told Men’s Health. “It’s better to stay in shape than to get in shape.”

Johnson said he picked up the “boring” habit of eating the same thing every day from his dad, pro wrestler Rocky Johnson.

“He taught me very early on not to eat to please the tongue but to eat to nourish the body,” the actor recalled. “He taught me that when I was five. That’s probably why I need therapy.”

He’s an advocate for big cheat meals

There’s still room for fun in Johnson’s disciplined diet. The actor has gone viral multiple times for posting big-portioned cheat meals like five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and his “world-famous Rock pancakes” on Instagram. 

After being named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2016, Johnson revealed that he had a weekly indulgence of “massive amounts of cheat food.”

“It can’t just can’t be a normal, like, ‘Hey, let’s go have some burgers and fries, it’s a nice cheat meal,’ ” the actor explained, adding that he has a “one is none” rule. “Get two, three, four, five of it, just a whole bunch and just lay it all out. Big cheat meals.”

He does a mix of cardio and weight training

Johnson’s workout routine depends on what he’s training for. While prepping for The Smashing Machine, he told his Instagram followers that his regimen included morning cardio and strength training.

As he’s gotten older, the actor has started to “train smarter” by learning to listen to his body and let go of “ego training.”

He told Men’s Health, “There’s a difference between the pain that you can work through—and that’s good to work through—and the pain where you have to stop what you’re doing and take care of that particular part of your body that’s hurt.”

An old wrestling injury changed the way his stomach looks

In a 2021 Wired interview with his Jungle Cruise costar Emily Blunt (who he would later reunite with in The Smashing Machine), Johnson answered the “f—– up” Google search, “What’s wrong with The Rock’s abs?”

“There’s nothing wrong with them,” the Baywatch star said, adding that his “five-and-a-half pack” was due to a prior wrestling injury where he tore the top quad off of his pelvis.

He said, “That caused a chain reaction and it tore my abdomen wall. So then I had to do a triple hernia emergency surgery … so, they’re not, like, perfect abs.”

He spent years fixing a gut issue

Even with an intense workout routine and a perfectly tweaked diet, Johnson still spent years struggling to digest his food properly. After connecting with functional medicine expert Dr. Mark Hyman, he learned that his gut lining had been damaged after two rounds of antibiotics. 

“I was just getting ready to launch into what would what would become a nine-month work for me,” the actor said in a June 2025 interview on The Dr. Hyman Show. “I was thinking, ‘Holy s—, how am I gonna get through this with my gut issues?’ ”

Within eight weeks of taking probiotics and plant chemicals like green tea, pomegranate and cranberry, Johnson said his body was back “on the right track.”

He was asked to get “bigger” for his role in The Smashing Machine

Director Benny Safdie revealed that he asked Johnson to get “bigger” and “puffier” to play Kerr in The Smashing Machine. And to his amazement, the actor was up for the task of trying to match the wrestler’s “unique” silhouette.

“It was very specific training because if you think about it, Mark, as an amateur wrestler, there’s movements that he would do constantly all day that would just build certain fast twitch muscles,” Johnson said during an August 2025 press conference for the film, per E! News. “You know, I’m in my fifth level of life. [But] when Benny Safdie says, ‘Hey, I need you to … ,’ [I go], ‘Okay, I’ll try it.’ ”