Wahlberg reveals extreme weight loss difficulty

Mark Wahlberg's lips "turned blue" after he lost 60 pounds for his role in 'The Gambler'.

The 43-year-old actor gambled with his health after he dramatically lost 60 pounds for his role as Jim Bennett, a high-stakes gambler who has a run in with a gangster loan shark.

Talking about his decision to lose the weight, Mark said: "I went from 197 to - the lightest I'd ever been in a movie was in 'Boogie Nights', I was 138 - so I wanted to beat that.

"I beat it by a pound, so 137. I was losing weight while we were shooting the movie too, so continuity kind of went out of the window.

"[I had] no energy, no nutrition, and the studio, there was a complaint about that, that my lips were always looking blue.

"What the f**k do you want me to do? I haven't eaten anything! If you make them red, I'm going to look weird, like I've got lipstick on, so it is what it is."

When asked how he managed such a dramatic loss, Mark told US magazine: "Once I get into it I can't stop, so it's a 24 hour, seven days a week thing.

"I stopped eating food for the first six weeks and just had small liquids throughout the day, then I was exercising two or three times a day."

However, the newly slimmed down actor revealed that his wife Rhea Dunham, 36, and their four children - Ella, 11, Michael, eight, Brendan, six and four-year-old Grace - were too happy with his transformation.

He shared: "They didn't like it. My wife was a little freaked out, I was losing so much weight. I'm training now for this other thing and my daughter's like, 'You should quit your job, you should become a body builder.' She's just being sarcastic. She's probably heard her mother say something."