Matt Lauria explains why the men of ‘Kingdom’ are always ‘hangry’

On Wednesday (June 1), Season 2b of "Kingdom" premieres and Zap2it got to sit down and chat with Matt Lauria, who stars on the show as MMA fighter Ryan Wheeler. While visiting him on the show's Navy St. gym set in North Hollywood, the 33-year-old actor opened up about his diet and training regimen for the series. "You can't just look like a model" he says, as he describes the specific and grueling workouts required to pull off looking like a real fighter.

It's intense. No steroids involved, either! The actors on "Kingdom" get functional muscle through working with professional MMA trainers like Greg Jackson and Jo Daddy Stevenson. To learn more about the difference between fighting on camera and real life fights in the ring click here. For information regarding the minimal diet Lauria must maintain while filming, read below.

Zap2it: What do you do to get in shape before the season starts? Or are you already in shape?

Matt Lauria: It becomes your lifestyle. The demands of the show are so great. Byron [Barasco's] writing is very challenging, who these characters are psychologically, but the physical demands are equally challenging. In order to meet these demands, it's all consuming. And your life tends to parallel the characters. It helps because it's a little less of a stretch for you to show up at work because you've already had your boxing session, you're under-rested and tired ...

What time do you wake up to train?

When I was lifting in the mornings, I was getting up at 4 a.m., having a sweet potato, protein, some almonds and some peanut butter. Going back to sleep for another hour. Then getting in the car around 5: 15 a.m. to head out to where my coach is training at 6.

But let's say we start a 8 a.m. Then two hours of make-up. And you have to somehow get your cardio or boxing session in before that. Get showered up and get to work. Then you wrap at 8 o'clock, get out of all that, and you go right back to the gym and do your strength training.

But it's great! Because you're eating ... nothing!

Do you get hangry?

Yeah. I think there's more than one wife involved with the show ... I think all of us have had to really spoil them and thank them for our indecency. You get deeper in the season, you have a lot more to apologize for.

Matt Lauria and wife Michelle Armstrong

How much weight do you cut?

Well, you always want to be putting on weight on. That would be ideal ...

Ugh. Boys.

You can't help but shed, because you have to maintain such a low body percentage for so long that you end up losing weight over time. I started this season of 173, and I cut to 155 on the day we had to cut weight. At that point, I was walking around at 167 or 168.