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Why I Don’t Look Like Dwayne Johnson

I just ate two Life Savers.

And why does this matter to anyone, you ask? Well, I’m going to tell you.

It matters because I want to talk about someone who hasn’t had two Life Savers today—or yesterday, or last year. Not since the last millennium, actually. And then I’m going to connect the dots regarding why one celebrity’s candy habits—or lack thereof—is illustrative of something that affects us all.

Today I stumbled across a story I found rather dumbfounding. Former professional wrestler turned actor Dwayne (“The Rock”) Johnson recently told Jimmy Fallon that he hasn’t had candy since … 1989.

Yeah, that’s right. Not since the first Bush was president. Not since before Taylor Swift was born. Not since … well, you get the point.

I also recently found out that Johnson is 44. About 18 months younger than me. Now, theoretically, that gives me a kind of hope that there’s still a chance for me to, ahem, get in shape. Or, at least, get a different, more sculpted shape than the rather unthreatening, round-in-spots look I sport now.

But the important word in that last sentence is theoretically. That’s because, well, Dwayne and I have different habits. If I go a week without a piece of candy, it feels like a Herculean deprivation worthy of some sort of medal. Dwayne? He’s done without since before the Berlin Wall came down.

But here’s where things take a more serious turn for those of us who look at stars and long, even if only in a small way, to look more like them. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that there’s a pretty big correlation between the fact that Dwayne Johnson looks the way he does and the fact that, until he tried to remember how to eat a Twizzler on The Tonight Show a few weeks ago, he hadn’t touched sweets for nigh unto three decades.

In other words, the reason that these stars look the way they do is hardly accidental. It’s because they don’t live like we normal mortals do. They don’t skip snacks for a day or three but for 27 years. Their commitment to how they look is extreme. So those of us who in some way might like to look more like them are, more often than not, absolutely incapable of looking like them unless we went to extreme measures ourselves. And maybe, given how we all have different genes and body types, even then we might be out of luck.

I recently reviewed Johnson’s new movie, Central Intelligence. In it, his character goes from an overweight high school pariah to the chiseled-from-stone “demigod” he appears as today. At one point, a friend from high school asked him what it took to make that transformation happen. He said he only did one thing: He went to the gym “for six hours. Every day. For the last 20 years. Straight.”

It’s a funny line in the movie. But one suspects that it’s not far from reality. In a recent article for bodybuilding.com, Johnson talked at length about his 22-week training regimen to bulk up for his 2014 role as, you guessed it, Hercules. “For Hercules, I went for the demigod look: big and mean. When you’re playing a character like the son of Zeus, you only get one shot,” he said. “The intensity of the training was definitely up, as was the volume of training. I really wanted to make it the definitive version of Hercules.”

Now listen to the specifics:

I start working out pretty early, around 4 a.m. When I’m filming, I do cardio and I lift before going to set. I train about six days a week, and even when I’m not filming I get up between 3 and 5 a.m. just to train. I love training when the sun is coming up because it allows me to put on my headphones and step off the crazy treadmill that is everyone’s life. I have my headphones on and I’m listening to my music, and I’m 100 percent focused. There’s no wasted time or effort when it comes to me and the weights.

I work out for about 90 minutes, or maybe an hour and 45 minutes. When I hit the gym, I’m coming! I train hard, I come to kick a–—clanging and banging. With something like Hercules, I was in costume and make-up for a few hours before shooting, so I’d have to get in the workout early.

He concluded by saying, “Working out anchors my day. For me, training is my meditation, my yoga, hiking, biking, therapy all rolled into one. I love it. Generally, I’m always shooting or preparing to shoot for something, so that’s why I like keeping my conditioning in a certain zone. But even if I wasn’t it would launch my day. It makes me feels good.”

Regarding the diet that goes hand-in-hand with such a workout schedule, Johnson added, “Generally, I eat six or seven times a day. It’s about getting enough protein to aid lean muscle growth, and everything is very precisely measured depending on what targets I’m looking to hit for that day. Lots of protein, good carbs, and veggies. Nutrition is so important, it can’t be stressed enough.”

My colleague Paul Asay unearthed more specifics about Johnson’s Herculean diet: His three breakfasts, his retinue of egg whites, his disdain for actual plates. In other words, looking like Hercules—or the many other beefcake rolls he plays—is pretty much a full-time job for Johnson.

In truth, I’d be pretty happy to shave 10 to 15 pounds off. I don’t really want to look like The Rock.

Then again, I’m 45, and I’ve had quite a bit of practice working through my own particular insecurities about what I do and don’t look like. I’m pretty much at peace with who I am (maybe even a bit too much so). Still, the fantasy of looking like a superhero can even creep into my psyche, even though I know very well that it’s an impossibility.

If it can affect someone like me, how much more do the images of impossibly beautiful and buff men and women influence those who are growing up today? Never has image and physical beauty been more important, more omnipresent, in the lives of youth.

Which makes it critically important for those of us raising the next generation to talk openly about body image, how we feel about ourselves, what’s healthy, what’s not and what’s simply a Hollywood fantasy.

That may not be a silver bullet that solves every self-esteem issue for the children and adolescents we interact with. But at least we can help them begin to understand that there’s nothing normal, easy or accidental about an actor who looks like a Greek god.