The Skinny on Twilight Star's Dramatic Weight Loss

Find out why Alex Meraz shed his muscular wolf physique when the cameras stopped rolling on the vampire movie franchise

He didn't exactly pull a 50 Cent in the weight loss department, but Twilight wolf Alex Meraz did drop some major poundage recently for a movie role.

Meraz tells me heshed his muscular physique for his part as a local prisoner in The City of Gardens, a gritty drama based on the real-life story of an American surfer who was sent to a Peruvian prison after being wrongfully accused of drug trafficking.

How much weight did Meraz lose and how did he do it? Read on to find out...

Meraz, who is 5'11" and muscled up to 185 for the Twilight flicks, dropped about 45 pounds to play what he described as "an asshole prisoner who pisses on guys' heads."

 "I didn't want to look like a Ken doll, you know what I mean?" he said. "It's a Peruvian prison in the '80s, which is nothing like an American prison. There's not much food. There are definitely no free weights to work out with. So I couldn't have a gym body."

Meraz stopped lifting weights, did lots of cardio, reduced his meal portions and even went on a juice diet for some of the time.

"I could see my heart beat through my chest," he said.

He predicts it will take him another month to get back to his wolf weight. "It's been a slow arduous process," he said. "I have about 15 pounds."