Ex-WWE champion Dave Bautista 'killing' himself to get slim after fries, pancakes made him 'fat'

Dave Bautista, the former WWE champion, has opened up about his significant weight loss, revealing he was unhappy with his changing physique. Known by his in-ring name 'Batista', the 55-year-old wrestler-turned-actor has shed an impressive 80 pounds, dropping from 320 pounds to 240. While he may no longer be as muscular as he once was, Bautista is content and at peace with his current body.

Bautista feels that he had gotten too fat and big, which had begun costing him acting gigs. Known to play the character Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy series in the Marvel world, Bautista's upcoming film, the Killer's Game, is due to release in four days, but as he explores and ventures into other projects, Dave knew he had to lean down.

"I started trimming down for a particular reason. Why I did it is because I got fat. I got really big for a role, rather uncomfortably big. I was around 315 pounds and put on weight really fast. When I was younger, I was carrying lots of muscle."

"This weight I put on between films and gained it rather quickly with French fries and pancakes. The director told me 'I don't want you to look like a power-lifter. I just want you to look like this great big guy' And now looking back, I think I overdid it. It took me forever to shed it off," Bautista told Chris Van Vliet on his podcast.

"Then I noticed the more I trimmed down, the better I look on camera, next to other actors. The more I trimmed down, the better I feel. People tell me 'you're skinny'. I saw online that people are worried about my health. I say it out loud to people I am 6'4 and 240 pounds. But to me, because people have seen me so much over the years, I am still a big human being. I am killing myself to be this trim, I am training hard. My calories are pretty restricted. Maybe 2500 a day."