I'm A Celebrity star Nick Pickard admits to secret preparation before show
He’s been one of the stalwarts of the camp and an all-around good guy.
But there may be a secret reason why soapstar Nick Pickard has been surviving so well in the jungle. He had put himself through secret body training beforehand - by doing practice fasts to make sure he would be able to handle the hunger. Nick, 48, who’s played chef Tony Hutchinson in Hollyoaks since 1995, let slip his radical preparation in a newly-released interview from just before he went into the jungle. He admitted: “The hunger, without a doubt, is the scariest thing. That’s what I was most worried about, the not eating, so what I’d been trying to do was intermittent fasting - in preparation.”
Nick Pickard trained his body to deal with hunger by doing intermittent fastingHe added: “And I had been trying not to eat before 12pm - it’s really hard.” Nick also made sure he was acclimatised to the infamous rice and beans staple diet. “I had a bowl of rice the other night and it was really rubbish, and that was just plain rice!,” he said. “I was like ‘Oh my God’ if I’ve got to live off this for at least two weeks, I’m in trouble!”
The actor, whose long-term partner Sarah Corrin is waiting for him in OZ, also admitted to having a secret agenda for doing the show - to shed some pounds before Christmas. “It’s the experience of a lifetime, and obviously you want to go in and do well and you want the public to like you, but the best part about it is you’re going to lose weight,” the dad-of-one explained. “Especially before Christmas as well. It’s quite nice you know what I mean! I’ll come out and have the best Christmas, I’ll probably put it all back on straight after.”
Nick will be dressed as Santa for the soap (DAILY MIRROR)Nick’s co-star Alex Fletcher, who plays Diane O’Connor on the hit soap, confirmed to the Mirror that his plan seems to be working. “He’s lost loads of weight! I am a little bit like ‘Can someone just feed him something’ because he is such a feeder,” she says. “He loves his scran!” However, luckily for the actor, he has also been able to pick the brains of some other Hollyoaks co-stars who have been in the jungle, including Jamie Lomas and last year’s I’m A Celeb star Owen Warner.
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“I’ve spoken to Owen [Warner] I’ve spoken to Jamie [Lomas], but you’ve got to remember we had Stuart Manning in there, Jorgie Porter in there, I’ve known loads of people over the years they’ve all told me about it in the past and everyone that’s done that show has told me that hunger is the worst thing,” he said. “The hunger and the boredom but I think I’ll be alright with the boredom, you can entertain yourself. When you’re working on sets over the years there’s a lot of waiting around anyway so just treat it like that.”
Nick has his next acting job all lined up - he’ll be donning the full Santa garb for the soap. The post-jungle tan might make things a little hard on continuity though, and there isn’t much sun in Lapland either. He jokes, “I’ll just suddenly have an incredible tan, well, hopefully touch wood. Tony 2.0 brown and slim.”
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