Celebrity6 min(s) read
Published 16:00 28 Jul 2026 GMT
Matt Damon's Odyssey diet and workout: how he dropped to 167 pounds at 55
The gym where Matt Damon built his Odyssey body is in the basement of his apartment building.
It has a trap bar, a barbell with no rack, some dumbbells, a cable machine, and a Versaclimber. That's about it.
"You'd be shocked at how crappy it is," his trainer Gabe Stump recently told Vogue.
In that gym, over five months, Damon dropped from somewhere around 200 pounds to 167.
He's 55. He told the Kelce brothers on New Heights that he hadn't weighed that little since high school.
Now it's going on an IMAX screen the size of a building, no CGI, with Christopher Nolan behind the camera.
"Sadly, there's no shortcut," he said.
"It's all diet and exercise."
What did Christopher Nolan want Damon to look like?
The brief was oddly specific.
Nolan and his team had a clear picture of what Odysseus should look like after 20 years of war and wandering.
Not bulky, but not a bodybuilder - lean and weathered but obviously strong.
"They basically came back and said, 'we see Odysseus as someone who's obviously a warrior and very strong, but he's gone through this 20-year odyssey, and through that time he's gotten more and more lean,'" Stump recalled.
So the goal was to strip about 15 pounds of fat off Damon while keeping as much of his existing muscle as possible.
Stump had been working with him since after Air, where Damon carried extra weight to play Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro.
The three years since had been about longevity and general fitness.
Nothing fancy, just keep him moving and keep him healthy.
Then the Nolan call came and everything changed.
Matt Damon's Odyssey workout routine
Four strength days a week. One cardio day. Upper body Monday and Thursday, lower body Tuesday and Friday, cardio on Wednesday.
Each session ran 45 minutes to an hour, six to eight exercises, and that was it. Go home.
The strength work wasn't about getting bigger. It was about sending a signal.
"That's what maintains the size you have and tells your body to prioritise body fat as fuel," Stump said.
"If you're not using the muscle, your body will consume that tissue instead of fat."
Upper body was a mix of push and pull.
Flat dumbbell bench one session, incline the next.
Chest-supported row one day, pull-ups the next.
Main lift first, then accessory stuff for the muscles that would actually be on camera. Three or four sets, eight to 10 reps on the heavy stuff, 12 to 15 on the rest.
Lower body was trickier because of the equipment problem.
No squat rack meant no back squats. They used the trap bar deadlift as their main heavy movement and worked around the limitations with landmine squat variations and hip thrusts.
"We had a regular barbell, but no rack," Stump said - they had to make do.
For context, Damon's previous trainer Jason Walsh had him doing 100 pull-ups two or three times a week during the Bourne films.
"He loves challenges," Walsh told Men's Health.
"Once you lose some of that excess weight, pull-ups get a lot easier. He was doing 30-some pull-ups per set."
Does Matt Damon do cardio?
Damon hates cardio.
"He hates doing cardio. But who doesn't, right?" Stump said.
Wednesdays were flexible.
Sometimes it was intervals on the Versaclimber. Sometimes HIIT circuits with medicine ball slams, kettlebell swings, and jump rope.
Sometimes, if the week had already been heavy, Stump would just tell him to put on a weight vest and walk uphill for 45 minutes.
"It doesn't have to be super fast. Just get a good sweat going and then come home."
What did Matt Damon eat for The Odyssey?
Stump was blunt about this from day one. The gym was not going to be what got Damon lean. The food was.
"I told him at the outset that this is a diet and nutrition goal. Anytime you're talking about losing body fat, that's a calories-in thing. You're not going to control that by exercising more."
Damon cut gluten completely. He hasn't gone back.
"I'm done. I'm gluten-free everything," he told the Kelces.
"I found a gluten-free beer. It's been so long since I've had gluten, I can't tell if it's good or not. So that's a good sign."
Alcohol went. Processed sugar went. Protein stayed high to protect the muscle mass.
The rest was clean carbs and whole foods. Stump said he barely had to coach Damon on the nutrition side because the man has done this before, multiple times, across decades of Hollywood transformations.
"He didn't really need that much help with his diet, and I think that's because he's done this so many times."
How does Damon's transformation compare to his Odyssey co-stars?
Damon isn't the only person in The Odyssey who has gone through a physical transformation to get here.
Elliot Page, who also appears in the film and previously worked with Nolan on Inception, has been photographed recently with six-pack abs from boxing training.
Page has spoken about how much more comfortable he is in his body since transitioning, and described his relationship with acting as 'so much better' now.
Robert Pattinson, who plays Antinous in The Odyssey, has taken a famously unconventional approach to physical preparation over the years.
He once quit acting entirely after a particularly intense early role, only to get the Twilight call days later.
Damon's approach is the opposite of dramatic. Basement gym. 45-minute sessions. No gluten. Show up every day. Don't overthink it.
When did The Odyssey come out?
The Odyssey opened July 17 and has been a huge hit.
It's Nolan's adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek epic, shot on new IMAX film technology.
Tom Holland plays Telemachus. Anne Hathaway plays Penelope. Zendaya is Athena. Charlize Theron is Circe. It is, by any measure, the biggest ensemble Nolan has ever assembled.
Damon gets his shirtless scene on an IMAX screen.
At 55. In a body built in a crappy basement gym on a programme most people could follow without quitting their jobs.
Stump put it simply: "The most impressive thing about him is his consistency.
"He's really a guy that will show up, day in and day out, and put in the work."
167 pounds. Five months. No shortcut.
The results are there to be seen, on a 70-foot-tall screen.
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