Brad Pitt’s Fight Club Workout & Diet Plan (Explained)

Always remember the first rule of Fight Club: Talk about Brad Pitt’s physique in Fight Club.

What, that’s not the first rule? Okay, well, maybe it isn’t, but it should be.

Over the years, Brad Pitt has put his body through a number of impressive changes to accommodate the roles he was playing, but perhaps none are more impressive than the shredded physique he displayed as Tyler Durden in Fight Club.

Achieving such a look is no small feat and requires an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to pull off.

Well, if you’ve always wanted to achieve such a look, let me show you exactly what it took to accomplish, as I dissect both the workout program and diet plan he used to put together that famous figure.

Brad Pitt’s Transition to Tyler Durden

At the time of filming, Pitt was one of the top names in Hollywood. A recent run of films, including Seven, Meet Joe Black, and Interview With the Vampire, had propelled him to mega-stardom.

Director David Fincher had previously worked with Pitt 4 years earlier on the aforementioned Seven and would end up casting him as his lead for a third time, almost a decade later, in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

When he was put in charge of adapting Chuck Palahniuk’s book of the same name, Pitt was his first choice for the role. Their prior history together, combined with Pitt’s ability to both morph into characters and draw at the box office, made him the perfect candidate.

Fincher’s vision for the character physically was someone with a wiry, lightweight fighter’s body.

This provided Pitt with a solid challenge when it came to preparing his body for the role, but not one that was unreasonable, given how well Pitt’s natural frame lends itself to the desired physique.

Brad Pitt’s Height, Weight, and Stats

When he was cast for the role, he weighed 167 pounds, at just over 10% body fat. Standing at 5’11”, this gave Pitt a naturally lean and slim physique.

This was ideal, as his co-star Edward Norton stood only an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier.

Now, spoiler alert.

As Pitt played an embodiment of the wild side of Norton’s character, it made sense for the two men to share a similar build. Pitt just needed to demonstrate a more extreme version of it.

Using his now infamous routine, by the time filming started, Pitt had dropped his weight to 155 pounds and his body fat to around 5-6%.

While this may not seem like an especially dramatic change considering his good starting position, it’s still very impressive. The body fat percentage is an especially incredible achievement, as this is the region you’ll normally find reserved for elite-level bodybuilders and sprinters.

Brad Pitt’s Fight Club Workout Routine

Monday – Chest (Rest 1 Minute Between Sets)

• Press-Ups: 25 reps x 3 sets
• Bench Press: 25 reps at 165 lbs, 15 reps at 195 lbs, 8 reps at 225 lbs
• Nautilus Press: 15 reps x 3 sets at 80, 100, and 130 lbs
• Incline Press: 15 reps x 3 sets at 80, 100, and 130 lbs
• Pec Deck: 15 reps x 3 sets at 60, 70, and 80 lbs

Tuesday – Back (Rest 1 Minute Between Sets)

• Pull-Ups: 25 reps x 3 sets to failure
• Seated Rows: 15 reps x 3 sets at 75, 80, and 85 lbs
• Lat Pull-downs: 15 reps x 3 sets at 135, 150, and 165 lbs
• T-Bar Rows: 15 reps x 3 sets at 80, 95m and 110 lbs

Wednesday – Shoulders (Rest 1 Minute Between Sets)

• Arnold Press: 15 reps x 3 sets at 55 lbs
• Lateral Raises: 15 reps x 3 sets at 30 lbs
• Front Raises: 15 reps x 3 sets at 25 lbs

Thursday – Biceps & Triceps (Rest 1 Minute Between Sets)

• Preacher Curls: 15 reps x 3 sets at 60, 80, and 95 lbs
• EZ Cable Curls: 15 reps x 3 sets at 50, 65, and 80 lbs
• Hammer Curls: 15 reps x 3 sets at 30, 45, and 55 lbs
• Push-downs: 15 reps x 3 sets at 75, 80, and 100 lbs

Friday & Saturday – Cardio

• Running: 1 hour at 80-90% of your maximum heart rate

Brad Pitt’s Fight Club Diet Plan

Breakfast

• 6 egg whites
• 7 egg yolks (the eggs could be substituted for a protein shake if pushed for time)
• 75 grams of oatmeal
• Raisins

Mid Morning Snack

• 1 tin of tuna
• 1 whole-wheat pita bread

Lunch

• 2 chicken breasts
• 75-100g of brown rice or pasta
• Selection of green vegetables

Pre Workout Snack

• Whey protein shake or protein bar
• 1 banana

Post Workout Snack

Dinner

• Grilled fish or chicken
• Brown rice or pasta
• Selection of vegetables
• Salad

Night Time Snack

Casein protein shake or cottage cheese

How To Transform Your Body Like Brad Pitt/Tyler Durden

Specificity

When you want to achieve a physique of this caliber, you can’t afford to have anything holding you back.

As such, you need to ensure that every detail of your routine is finely tuned to your own body. It’s unfortunate, but in fitness, what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another.

While this is a solid, well-designed program, you can’t expect to achieve the exact same results without tweaking certain things.

Firstly, make sure that the calories on the diet plan are suitable for your own body weight.

Remember, in order to cut fat, you need to consume fewer calories than your body needs. If you don’t get this balance right, you won’t lose weight, no matter how hard you train.

Second, ensure the weights used are sufficient. Brad worked out his routine so that the weights he used would take him to failure. If they are too light for you, make sure to increase them, or you won’t make any progress.

Equally, if they are too heavy, make sure to lower them. Using weights that you cannot reach the desired rep range on may help you build your strength but will do very little to help you shred up in the same manner as this program is designed to.

Finally, the meal plan was built around Brad’s filming schedule. If your schedule makes it tough to train or eat at the same times he did, don’t be afraid to mix it up.

While you still need to have the night time snack last and the pre and post workout snacks on either side of when you train, you can juggle the timing of your workout and other meals as necessary.

Just make sure you don’t leave any out.

Commitment

As you should have gathered by now, it takes an incredible amount of time and effort to look like Tyler Durden. If it didn’t, half the guys you saw would look the same way he does.

If you truly want to achieve a physique like this, you have to stay dedicated.

There will be times when you want to cheat on your diet.

You can’t.

There will be occasions you want to skip a workout.

You mustn’t.

You’ll sometimes want to give up altogether, as you feel you’ll never achieve your goal.

Don’t do it.

You have to be totally confident and committed to the process.

Considering his shape when he started, combined with his circumstances allowing him to make it his main focus in life, it’s reasonable to think it will take you a little longer than him to achieve the same results.

As long as you have the commitment, though, there’s no reason why you can’t succeed if you follow the plan.

Belief

This may seem obvious, but one of the biggest barriers to achieving a physique like this is believing the program will actually work.

In life, we’re used to seeing ads that sell us an idea but then don’t look the same in reality.
With celebrity fitness programs, you always have those lingering doubts.

I bet they had an expensive personal trainer.

I bet all their meals were professionally prepared.

I wonder what else they were taking.

If you think like this, you’re destined to fail from the get-go.

Clear your mind of anything other than what they looked like at the start and then what they looked like at the end.

They have no reason to lie to you, and they’ve given you all the tools you need in order to imitate them. All you need to do to see results is get out of your own way and believe in the process.

Brad Pitt’s Fight Club Program: Final Thoughts

OK, so we all know the real first rule of Fight Club, which is to never talk about Fight Club. The problem is, if you follow this program (or any other similar workout program, for that matter), you’re always going to be breaking the first rule.

With its intensity, attention to detail, and easy to replicate manner, you’re guaranteed to see results, as long as you put in the work. That means you’ll be talking about how you got your Fight Club physique to anyone who’ll listen, breaking the rule time and time again.

At the end of the day, though, if you’re sporting a physique like Tyler Durden, is anyone really going to argue?