Dave Bautista Reveals He 'Shed About 50 More Lbs.' with Jiu-Jitsu but Admits ‘I’ve Sacrificed a Lot of Muscle’

Dave Bautista is opening up about the ups and downs of his ongoing weight-loss journey, saying “I’ve sacrificed a lot of muscle, but I’m okay with it.”

On the Tuesday, July 16, episode of LIVE with Kelly and Mark, Bautista — who famously played buff, stoic Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise —  told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos that he turned to jiu-jitsu to get fit.

“It’s the way I lose weight,” Bautista, 55, explained, referring to the martial art while discussing his new action-comedy, My Spy: The Eternal City, which debuts on Prime Video July 18.

“I put on all this weight for Knock at the Cabin. I was really big, like over 300 lbs.,” he said.

“I was struggling to lose the weight, so I brought a trainer — my buddy Jason Manly — over to Budapest with me while I was filming Dune,” he said.

He added that the duo "did nothing but grapple, like for hours. And so I started shedding the weight off and I figured ‘I’ll just stick with it so I’ll get my brown belt.’ “

Bautista noted that he took some time off from jiu-jitsu, but recently “got back into it,” and is now bringing trainers with him when he films.

“I just shed about 50 more lbs.,” he revealed.

“You hide your weight well,” Ripa commented, adding that he’d been on the show when he was promoting Knock at the Cabin.

“Muscle weighs more than fat, so clearly a lot of it is muscle weight,”  she said, prompting Bautista to reply, “I was trimming down, and I’ve sacrificed a lot of muscle. But I’m okay with it, because I just feel more comfortable.”

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Still, he said, “There were just certain spots that no matter how much weight I lost that I couldn’t get rid of it.”

“This little bit here,” he said, pointing to his stomach, “and even under here,” he added, pointing to his chest, “and even in my face, like, I was just holding on to fat.”

“When I was younger I would just shed it like that. I could not get rid of it,” Bautista added, to which Consuelos quipped, Just get another tattoo."

Although he may be feeling his age in terms of fitness, Bautista told the co-hosts that he still doesn’t feel 55 in other aspects of his life.

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“Mentally I’m still, I don’t know, early 30s. Late 20s, early 30s. Maybe 40,” he said. “I think 40 was when I really started to just be okay with myself, and feel comfortable with myself. So maybe 40 still.”