Adam Driver’s rotisserie chicken a day diet is put to the test (2024)

Man versus rotisserie chicken.

The grocery-store rotisserie chicken is taking flight on social media after a Philadelphia-based restaurant server, Alexander Tominsky, 31, made headlines for losing 16 pounds in 40 days.

His secret, as he told the New York Times, was to eat one full rotisserie chicken daily — and usually nothing else. A photo of the chowhound, for example, shows a picture of his chicken, alongside what appears to be a bowl of radishes.

Tominsky first went public about his chicken run on Oct. 8 by tweeting: “I am eating a rotisseriechicken every day for 30 days. Today is day 11. I will keep you all updated as I get closer to my goal.”

Every day since then, the determined poultry fiend stuck with it, posting a photo of himself posing with chicken in restaurants, at home and even outside amid the fall foliage. Pushing past the intended 30 days, Tominsky rallied a crowd of food fans to watch him devour his 40th chicken, culminating the marathon on Nov. 6.

The fowl diet comes years after “Star Wars” actor Adam Driver made headlines for revealing he used to eat the dish while attending Juilliard.

Driver told GQ that in the early days of his acting career, he would run from his apartment in Queens to class in Manhattan and consume an entire rotisseriechicken in a day — along with six eggs each morning — to stay fit.

Driver’s former Juilliard classmate,Scott Aiello, recalled Driver would “walk around school with an entire chicken in one hand and a jug of water in the other” on an episode of the “Film Reroll” podcast, as reported by Eater. The supermarket sweep for chicken was perhaps a stepping stone to Driver’s shreddedphysique.

More recently, social media influencer Tinx has been known to nibble on a store-bought bird in her kitchen, but not for dietary reasons. While nutritionists don’t exactly endorse a strictly fowl-based diet, they say the menu would make it possible to lose weight in a short period of time.

“It wouldn’t be a healthy way to live long term, but if that’s all you’re eating in a day and nothing else, you could [lose weight]. Protein is filling,” Lisa Young, a nutritionist, registered dietitian and author of “The Portion Teller Plan,” told The Post.

“You’re not going to get fiber, but the protein is going to be filling and that’s a good thing. Because the whole chicken is around 1,000 calories, that’s still considered a low-calorie diet. It’s doable [to lose weight], but it doesn’t have my seal of approval as a healthy diet,” she added.

A rotisserie chicken with skin packs on 162 grams of protein and 53 grams of fat, according to estimates from the app MyFitnessPal. The recommended dietary allowance for protein intake per person is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, according to a report by Harvard Health.

It’s unclear what sparked Tominsky’s bizarre food marathon aside from the spectacle of it all. And while he shed weight doing it, by the end of his chicken diet he noted the heavy effect the massive amounts of sodium had on his body, telling the Times he could “feel the pulse of my heart in my stomach.”

For anyone attempting the economically feasible diet, Young recommends ditching the skin.

“I advise skipping the skin and eating it in a more balanced way, by adding fruits and vegetables and plant proteins,” Young said.