Earlier this week, actor Mark Wahlberg caught headlines around the internet after posting an Instagram update on the body transformation he’s undergoing to play a boxer-turned-priest in Father Stu.

Instead of the usual, pre-blockbuster shred that most Hollywood types grind through before a feature film, Wahlberg is shooting to gain 13kg (30lbs) in six weeks. Speaking to Jimmy Kimmel, Wahlberg said he planned to undergo the unenviable task by eating a “20-piece chicken nugget and 20-piece hot wings from Kentucky Fried Chicken with a six-pack of beer”.

According to the actor’s most recent update — a before-and-after snap, posted earlier this week on his Instagram — the high-calorie diet is already working. “From left photo 3 weeks ago to this, now,” Wahlberg wrote. “Thanks to @chef_lawrence_d cooking.”

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Since then, Wahlberg’s personal chef, Lawrence Duran revealed to E! News that the 49-year-old Transformers and Deep Water Horizon star is eating “eight meals a day at about 7,000 calories” for his upcoming role in Father Stu. Despite his comments to Kimmel, chef Duran insists that he is “definitely not loading him [Wahlberg] up on junk.”

In fact, Wahlberg and Duran’s team are taking it to another level to ensure the actor’s health and safety. “We meet with a team of doctors who do his bloodwork and a nutritionist who gives us a full breakdown of what his body needs, what his body’s lacking and basically come up with a meal plan accordingly.
We go to a specialist every two weeks to see where we’re at and adjust things,” Duran said to E! News. “It’s not easy for anyone to take in that much food even though we’re breaking it up into smaller meals. He’s eating about every three hours. We do good carbohydrates, dark green vegetables, and then, just switch up the protein throughout the day and, at least, a dozen eggs a day. ”

Photo credit: BG015/Bauer-Griffin – Getty Images
But what does Wahlberg’s daily meal plan actually look like? “Morning usually starts about 3 a.m. and his first breakfast is four eggs—that’s the pre-breakfast. Then, he does his workout and then after the workout, which is usually around 5 to 6 o’clock in the morning, we do eight eggs, six strips of bacon, a cup of rice, two tablespoons of olive oil and a protein shake. It’s his protein-inspired mass weight-gainer to help build on a little more muscle as well.”

“Then, three hours later, we do some kind of ground beef or ground turkey, whether it’s been made into a hamburger patty or a meatloaf, with another cup of rice. And then, three hours later, I usually do half of a roasted chicken, another cup of rice, I’ll do about a cup of cooked spinach and a cup of cooked beets as well.”

“Three hours after that, we’ll go into either a veal chop or a pork chop—I’ll do about eight ounces of that and then a small, four-ounce piece of salmon with another cup of rice, olive oil and beets as well.”

“And then we’ll do another meal, which is usually eight ounces of some type of steak, eight ounces of some kind of white fish, like a sea bass or a halibut, and load up on tons of vegetables.”

“Right before he goes to bed, we’ll do what we call a mash that consists of one cup of cooked steel-cut oatmeal, two tablespoons of applesauce, two tablespoons of jelly or jam, two tablespoons of almond butter and a tablespoon of molasses. He has to take that down right before he goes to bed. It’s just another mass gainer to put on weight during his sleep.”