The Real Life Diet of Patrick Schwarzenegger, Who's Trying to Gain 27 Pounds for his 27th Birthday

Patrick Schwarzenegger is having a time zone problem. He’s in a 500-person text chain of people who’ve made a suicide pact-esque commitment to wake up at 5 a.m. to work out for 50 days. The problem is, not everyone’s on the West Coast. So now his phone is blowing up at all hours of the night as the gym selfies roll in. He knows he could have some automated program handle the texting for him—but then, he says, “it wouldn’t be personable.”

The commitment to his fellow risers and grinders is all part of a 27-pound goal he set on his 27th birthday last year. He cuts a pretty slim figure compared to his Governator father—Arnold started his career pumping iron, Patrick began as a model, and doesn’t have any plans to truly bulk up unless it’s for a role. But after two years on the bench, thanks to a gnarly shoulder injury that eventually required surgery, Schwarzenegger knew he needed to set goals if he wanted to get back on the horse. So he’s hitting the gym, and he’s got 500 ambitious texters to help him do it. Oh, and, you know, one really famous body builder to do father-son lift sessions with.

Following his role in Netflix’s Moxie, Schwarzenegger weighed in on how he’s packing on the pounds for his 27th year, what it’s like to work out with the Terminator, and his brutally honest ice cream review videos.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and everyone in between about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: What’s the first thing you like to do when you get up?

Patrick Schwarzenegger: Right now I'm on a 50 days at 5 a.m. program, so we wake up at 5 a.m., in the gym at 5:30. The first thing I do is text this group chain. There's about 500 people on it. I send them a motivational quote for the day. Then I'll go and get a little bit of caffeine in my body. I'll take some beet juice for a pre-morning workout, try to get a little bit of food in my system like almonds or a protein bar—something that gives me a bit of energy—and go work out.

How did the text chain get started?

As we went into this new year I wanted to get back onto my routine and I thought the only way I'd be held accountable is by other people doing it with me. So I posted on my Instagram story. We have to send a photo every morning at 5:00 when you're going to work out, and if you do it for 50 days in a row I send everybody some free coffee and goodies at the end. So I ended up having 500 people that are actually doing it. I'm surprised, I didn't think that many people would want to wake up at 5 a.m., but now I have to send them a text every morning and get up and show that I'm working out.

Do you also receive 500 texts of people working out at 5 am?

Yeah. Not everybody will do it every day. Certain people will text me throughout the day too.

Is everyone on the West Coast?

That's the problem. Some people text me at, like, 2 a.m. my time, which is 5 a.m. for the East Coast. My phone will light up in the middle of the night and I'll see all these messages pouring in. I'm sure I could have some program send the texts out, but then it wouldn't be real, it wouldn't be personable.

What kind of workouts are you doing?

We're really just bulking. When I turned 27 this year I thought it'd be fun to gain 27 pounds. I'm pretty close.

I do five days a week. I hurt my shoulder on a military set three years ago, so I couldn't lift for almost a year, and we’re finally back into heavy weights. We switch up the routine every month so it shocks the muscles. No cardio right now—sometimes I'll go on a bike ride, like, once a week. But it’s a lot of free weights, at certain angles to help take the pressure off my shoulder for increasing the weight load. We go for about an hour and fifteen. That includes a 10-15 minute warmup doing some body movements and band work and warming up my shoulder so I don't get hurt.

What was the rehab like for the shoulder injury?

I tried to do physical therapy for a year, and then I got PRP shots and I got stem cell shots and I tried physical therapy again. Nothing was showing up on the MRI. Finally the doctor decided to go and do a scope, and he basically found my whole shoulder was completely messed up and had to do a big surgery. I was out for eight months. It was pretty shitty. Between that and rolling right into COVID, I did absolutely nothing for a few months and just ate and got kinda out of shape.

How did you get from there to where you're at now?

Physical therapy every day. A lot of bands, a lot of motion movements, stretching. It sucked. But it's always fun to prove to yourself that you can go from doing absolutely nothing to getting back to where you wanna be. It just takes a long frickin' time.

How has your father influenced your relationship with fitness?

He definitely introduced me to fitness and made me love it. It really is part of my DNA and my daily routine. My dad really got me onto the idea of working out, but it's been myself that's focused and wanted to get to different levels of my training to become better. Because it just helps me in so many other categories. If you don’t slack off in the gym, you find ways to not slack off in other parts of your life.

Everybody's always, like, "What, you don't wanna become a body builder like your dad?" And I'm, like, "Nope!" That's not what I'm wanting to do. If they were, like, "Hey, you have the ability to play a body builder, you have to go gain another 30, 40 pounds,” I'd say great, let's roll.

How were you first introduced to fitness?

I was always playing sports in high school—swimming, tennis, football. When I was a junior I got really hooked on weight training and boxing. And then I just continued there.

Do you ever work out with your dad?

Ever since I started loving to work out, we've done that. He's so old-school. He hates if you have your phone out during gym time or if you dick around, anything like that. He's really gung ho about it.

Who's more fit?

He's 73 and he can still lift more than I can.

What are your eating habits like?

Right now I have that little snack around 5 before working out. Then I'll have a big smoothie at 7:30 with peanut butter and banana, sometimes oatmeal, chia seeds, flax seeds, bone broth protein, whey protein, and plant protein mixed. I'll have breakfast at 10 a.m., usually eggs or oatmeal or overnight oats. I usually have lunch around 12:30, then I have a smoothie again at 2 or 3, and then I'll eat a snack at 5 p.m., usually beef jerky or yogurt. I'll eat dinner at 7:30, which is usually meat and vegetables and some sort of complex carb like sweet potatoes or rice. Then I have a little protein shake before bed.

How much more is that than, say, a year ago when you weren't trying to put on 27 pounds?

It's double. I used to never eat until 11:00, I'd work out on an empty stomach, I'd do one smoothie a day, whereas right now it’s two or three.

Do you relax that schedule at all during weekends?

Every weekend is cheat meals for me. Usually I do banana pancakes, ice cream pretty much every night, and just eat whatever I want. Burgers, fries. I just had french fries and chicken tenders. I try to keep it clean-ish.

Can you tell me about your ice cream reviews on Instagram?

I'm just an ice cream fanatic. I was, like, "I'm gonna start reviewing some," because I have so many kinds at home. And then companies started to hit me up wanting to send me ice cream.

You're very honest about them.

I feel bad. I have to keep it honest, or else people don't trust the feedback. I think I gave one a zero. There's a lot of aspects that go into the scoring. One is the overall branding, whether it was hand scooped, what kind of flavors do you get in ring-around-the-rosie, which is when I go all the way around the pint rim and taste the different flavors. If it's cookies and cream and not any cookies come out in the first bite that's a down point. How creamy, how milky, how icy...I hate when it's icy. There's a bunch of parts to it.

How many pints are in that freezer you film in front of?

I have something like 75 pints in my freezer at a time. My dad came over last week and he brought one of his friends, and we ate, like, four or five pints together at lunch, and then the next day a big shipment came again. It's like immediate refills.

After some post-retirement weight gain, the Olympic legend worked hard to figure out a fitness and nutrition routine that worked for his civilian life.

Originally Appeared on GQ