Jason Segel’s Hot Pocket movie prep

Jason Segel was done eating Hot Pockets to gain weight for his new film after the first week.

The former How I Met Your Mother actor had to pile on the pounds to play late novelist David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour. The 35-year-old decided to embrace a diet of Hot Pockets, microwaveable meals containing cheese, meat or vegetables, and it became tough going quite quickly.

“[I ate] two Hot Pockets every three hours [to gain] about 30, 40lbs,” he said during an appearance on Live! with Kelly and Michael on Tuesday. “The first week is fun, and after that, every day feels like Thanksgiving night. Like, you're just done. You have no energy or anything like that.”

What made it even harder for Jason is that he was up against it time-wise. And as the first day of production loomed, he had to up his intake of Hot Pockets even more.

“By the end, I was running out of time. I had about two weeks left so I put myself on a Hot Pocket diet, which was two Hot Pockets every three hours…I was eating like 12 Hot Pockets a day,” he confessed. “I was so sick of them and I swore I would never eat another Hot Pocket, and if you put a Hot Pocket [here] right now, I would eat them.”

Jason previously admitted that he didn’t like to watch himself on screen, so no doubt a heavier version of himself was even less appealing to him. But one plus of making the film was the chance to work with co-star Jesse Eisenberg.

“I think I found a new lifelong friend — which is not always the case in movies because it's a very intense, compressed relationship where generally you have the best intentions to stay in touch, but you don't,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.