Danny Dyer has admitted his efforts to stay trim using a fad diet haven’t quite gone to plan.
The former EastEnders star, 47, revealed he's been trying intermittent fasting in a bid to keep the weight off, but it hasn’t been easy.
Speaking to Louis Theroux on his podcast, in quotes obtained by The Sun, Dyer explained: “I want to build up to not eating anything on Monday. I fast in the day just to keep the weight off.
“I feel like if you fast, it's good for your body as well. Just liquids so your body can start to eat itself. But it’s a struggle.
“Mondays are s**t anyway. So, you know, you've got to look forward to your dinner on a Monday. But I do fast during the day until the afternoon. You've got to drink plenty of water while you're doing it — and it does work.”
Elsewhere in the chat, he spoke to Theroux about another struggle he had experienced — substance abuse, and the turning point that made him decide to get clean.
“I was just sitting on the toilet in my en suite trying to work out what leg goes in what,” he told the podcast host. “I looked up and my wife was watching me. She looked shattered. She looked ill. That really stayed with me.”
Dyer said he suddently had a moment of clarity. “I thought, you are going to die. You are going to kill yourself. You are not happy. You are spending all your money on drugs. You are destroying everything around you.”
He said he could no longer ignore the toll it was taking on his wife, Joanne Mas, whom he married in 2016, and their three children — Dani, 28, Sunnie, 18, and Arty, 11.
“There were times when Jo took control of everything,” he said. “She even kicked me out once, and rightly so. I would go missing for days at a time.”
The actor originally shot to fame in the 1999 film Human Traffic and went on to become one of the most recognisable faces on British television.
He joined BBC soap EastEnders in 2013 as Mick Carter, a role that revived his career — but behind the scenes, he was heavily reliant on prescription drugs like Valium and diazepam to cope with the pressure.
“I had bailiffs coming round. No one would hire me. The more club appearances I did, the more I drank and took drugs. I was stuck in a spiral,” he said.
He finally took action in 2017 by entering rehab and has since spoken candidly about the dangers of glamorising addiction.
