The Male Model’s Credo: Skinny Forever

By U-Jin Lee

For 29-year-old Zach Pricer, a trip to the grocery store is defined by limitations and restrictions. The cookies and chips aisle serves no purpose, and the processed foods aisle is not an option. Instead, Pricer spends most of his time strolling through the vegetable and fruit section, where he starts by carefully picking out the Honeycrisp apples without bruises.

Pricer shopping at his favorite section. Photo: U-Jin Lee.

His cart quickly fills up with grapefruits, a bag of spinach, sweet potatoes, and some carrots.

“I try and maintain a low glycemic index,” Pricer says. “I need to eat things that keep me full for most of the time, otherwise, I’ll eat too much and I wouldn’t fit into any of the clothes they tell me to wear.”

At 6 foot 2, 168 pounds, with single-digit body fat, Pricer is a commercial model for beauty and clothing companies like Club Monaco, HSM International Suits, and American Crew Hair Products.  He worked as a valet parker in his hometown of Naples, Florida, until a photographer who was reclaiming his car told him, “You have potential to be a model, but ditch the scruffy clothes.”

Inspired, Pricer ran five miles and hit the gym daily, quickly chiseling away 10 pounds in one month, to get to his lowest weight, 165 pounds. After signing a three-year contract with Ford Models Agency, his first job took him to Miami Beach, not too far from his hometown.

In the summer of 2013, Pricer moved to New York to expand his career. While he models for several agencies abroad in Barcelona and Milan, he currently models for Ford Models and New York Models in New York. His work ranges from catalogues to runway modeling.

In a business where sculpted, six-pack abs and a slender, toned body type are career prerequisites, Pricer’s strict diet is a necessity. As he wraps up his grocery shopping for the week, Pricer makes his way to his final stop: the yogurt section.

His method of picking one out of a dozen different yogurt brands is simple. Looking at the label on one container of vanilla yogurt, he says, “Twenty-four grams…that’s way too much sugar.” His choice is the one next to it with six grams of sugar.

Inside his apartment, colored shirts line up neatly inside his closet and colognes and loafers are scattered around the common room, but there is not a single bag of chips or similar snack. The refrigerator holds one water bottle and a wrinkly grapefruit that looks like it hasn’t been touched for weeks. Even with the fresh groceries, the refrigerator remains only a quarter filled.

Spinach with veggie burger, carrots and sweet potatoes. Photo: U-Jin Lee

To start his dinner, Pricer preheats the oven, takes out two sweet potatoes and carrots and chops them up into thin, long slices. “Growing up, my mom only used olive oil, so it’s the only thing I’ll use,” Pricer said. “Everything else is too fattening.”

He grabs the sea saltshaker and sprinkles it on top of the vegetables, and puts them in the oven, and then puts a handful of spinach in a bowl. For the main dish, he grills an organic vegetable patty and plops it over the bed of spinach.

As he waits for his vegetables to bake, Pricer sets his dinner table—for one.

“I like to splurge once in awhile…Sundays are my cheat days,” he says. “I love to eat a really good Southern, home-cooked meal…like corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and even mac and cheese.”

When Pricer is not changing in and out of fitted outfits in the photo studio, improvising poses in front of the camera, he hits the gym four days a week where he routinely jump ropes and does cardio exercises.

“I imagine myself when I’m 50 to be in the shape I am in now,” he says. “I want to be booking classic looks, and I want to be very comfortable, with a beautiful family of course.”

See Zach Pricer’s recipe here.

U-Jin Lee