Ethan Suplees Incredible 21-Stone Weight Loss Journey

He is best known for his role as Randy in the American sitcom My Name Is Earl. 

However nowadays Ethan Suplee has dedicated himself to promoting a healthy lifestyle and targeting America's obesity crisis. 

Ethan, who has just turned 50, tipped the scales at 550lbs (39st) when he was 23-years-old, and after years of yo-yo dieting has managed to consistently keep the weight off and now weighs around 260lbs (18.5st). 

Detailing the constant physical pain he was in at his heaviest, he said: 'It was really uncomfortable for me. I was in hell. I was miserable. I was not comfortable. There was never a moment of any day where I was physically comfortable.

'It was hard to breathe, it was hard to walk around, I had to have seat belt extensions. There was for a long time, this feeling of "leave me alone and I want the world to change to suit me," and then I had this conversation and I was like, "that's never gonna happen".'

But the journey hasn't been easy and over the decades Ethan has gone up and down from 400lbs to 220lbs at his lowest. 

With the extreme weight loss has also come the challenge of dealing with loose skin that left him feeling like he had an 'apron around my abdomen' and led to two skin removal surgeries. 

Learning that there is no 'perfect body', Ethan has had to come to terms with how he looks only providing a limited amount of satisfaction. 

Speaking to Men's Health last June he said: 'This idea of having a body that looks the way I want it to look - I think it doesn’t exist.'

Unrecognisable now from his time on My Name Is Earl from 2005 to 2009, after the show finished Ethan began losing weight - and by the time he appeared on the red carpet to promote the film Unstoppable in 2010, he had dropped more than 200lbs.

In an interview with the Daily Mail last year, Ethan credited Jim Caviezel with motivating him to make the life-changing decision to slim down.

Ethan revealed he was sitting next to The Passion Of The Christ star on a plane when 'he basically held a mirror up to me in the conversation and was like, “you are not even aware of your state and your condition”.'

Paying Ethan some hard truths, Jim continued to tell him: 'you're gonna wind up in hell and you really need to take a look at yourself'.

Reflecting on the conversation, Ethan mused: 'I had a conversation with a guy and I left feeling very ashamed and at the time, I was upset by it.

'But again, in retrospect, I'm so grateful that he had that conversation with me because it was part of the ignition that sent me down this path.'

Taking a moment to look and reflect on his life, Ethan began to ask himself a series of questions: 'What do I want from my life? Do I want to have comfort? Do I want to feel physically comfortable at any point?

'Do I want to not have to worry that I have a hand cloth in my pocket so that I can wipe the sweat off my face?

'Do I want to not have to worry that I have two T-shirts on so that the amount of sweat that I produce doesn't bleed through and is visible to everybody.

'Do I not want to have to be early to every airport like by 3 hours because it just takes me so long to get from security to the gate?'

Ethan found fame playing Randy Hickey in the Emmy-winning Noughties comedy series My Name Is Earl (pictured with co-star Jason Lee in 2006)