You don't put on more than 160 pounds in seven years without some secret weapons

When you look at Hafthór Björnsson—more likely known to you as “The Mountain” from Game of Thrones—your first reaction is probably: Good God, that is a big man. Your second thought is likely: How do you even get that big? We wondered that too, and went in search of an answer for our "How I Got My Body" package. (Read his Q+A here.)

We found Björnsson (“Thor” to his friends; we are not joking) just outside Reykjavik in his home country of Iceland, where, when he’s not called away to shoot scenes and explode skulls for Game of Thrones, he’s usually lifting very heavy things—or eating. He took us inside his weightlifting lair to give us a glimpse of some of the exercises that will take you from a 235-lb basketball player (he played for Iceland’s national team) to a 395-lb strongman champion in a mere seven years. He also explained the diet needed to fuel a man who pulls 15-ton airplanes—turns out he’s largely a mountain of sweet potatoes, meat, eggs, (10 to 15 a day), and ice cream—and escorted us into the frigid Icelandic wilderness to lift some boulders in his skivvies.

So if you’re sitting there, thinking, Man, I could never be The Mountain, think again! You could be. You’d just need seven years, this video, and a very large appetite.

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Clay Skipper is a Staff Writer at GQ.XInstagramRelated Stories for GQGame Of Thrones