United Kingdom, Sept. 27 -- Sylvester Stallone struggled with bulimia as he grew "obsessed" with his physique in his early career.

The Rocky star was determined to have a "very limber and athletic" look but became so focused on his appearance that he stopped "keeping down" food in order to stay as slender as possible.

He told The New York Times newspaper: "I started to think: Design your body like a jaguar, a cat. Not big like Arnold [Schwarzenegger], but more feral and aggressive and very limber and athletic.

"It became an obsession. Really bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic.

"I got down to 2.6 percent body fat when I was doing Rocky III [in 1982].

"I couldn't hold anything down. Or I didn't want to keep it down because...