Actor Byun Yo-han has drawn attention for his noticeably leaner physique after losing more than 10 kg for his lead role as Jang Tae-young in Tazza: Song of Beelzebub (Tazza 4).
Speaking at a recent press screening, Byun shared that he initiated the transformation after the director asked him to lose weight for the character. "At the time, I weighed over 80 kg, but after losing more than 10 kg, I stopped weighing myself altogether," Byun said. "It was a period where I gave my absolute best and invested all my time into the process, which felt very similar to how Tae-young lives his life in the film."
Why Cutting Alcohol Accelerates Weight Loss
Byun cited complete abstinence from alcohol for six to seven months—until filming concluded—as the cornerstone of his diet. From a medical perspective, eliminating alcohol is considered one of the most reliable ways to accelerate fat loss.
Alcohol delivers 7 kcal per gram but offers no nutritional value, making its energy "empty calories." Eliminating a single bottle of soju (approximately 350 to 400 kcal) prevents the consumption of calories equivalent to one and a half bowls of rice.
Crucially, alcohol stalls the body's metabolic fat-burning system. Because the body recognizes alcohol as a toxin, it prioritizes metabolizing it over other nutrients. While processing alcohol, carbohydrate and fat oxidation pause, leading both the ingested alcohol and high-calorie side dishes to be stored directly as body fat, particularly visceral belly fat. Furthermore, alcohol temporarily impairs glucose production, triggering hypoglycemia and driving intense cravings for sugary, high-calorie foods.
A Textbook Approach: Exercise, Protein, and Visual Tracking
Alongside alcohol abstinence, Byun combined aerobic exercise with strength training while maintaining a strict, protein-focused, low-carbohydrate diet to improve muscle definition.
Cardiovascular exercise, such as running consistently for at least 30 minutes at moderate intensity, directly burns stored body fat. Weight training—particularly when targeting major muscle groups like the chest, back, and legs—builds muscle mass and elevates the basal metabolic rate, shifting the body into a state where it burns calories more efficiently. To sustain muscle mass during weight loss, medical guidelines recommend consuming at least 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight daily.
Byun also avoided fixating on scale numbers, choosing instead to track visible changes in the mirror—a practice commonly called "eye-body" monitoring.
Research supports the psychological efficacy of visual tracking. A 16-week study of 271 overweight and obese participants conducted by a research team at the University of Alicante in Spain found that 71 percent of participants who took and reviewed weekly full-body photos successfully reached their target weight. Participants reported that seeing visible changes in their physical shape provided stronger, more sustained motivation than non-visual clinical data.
