i lost over 100 pounds, a third of my weight. i was probably at my heaviest. you don’t ever weigh yourself at your heaviestbut i was probably over 340, certainly around there. and now as i sit here in front of you i’mprobably about 232.
crash diets make you gain weight, there’s a fluctuation of a couple of pounds,it goes back and forth. that’s a lot of weight. and i did not lose it for vanity. i was pretty happy with myself fat.
i didn’t mind being fat. it wasn’t a big deal to me. i didn’t mind how i looked. but my health was getting bad. i didn’t even mind how i felt very much. i didn’t mind not being energetic and stuff. but i started having blood pressure that wasstupid high like, you know, like english voltage, like 220 even on blood pressure medicine. and i have two young children.
i’m an old dad. my daughter was born when i was 50. so i’m 61 now. and my life expectancy, the actuary tableswere crashing down and the doctor said that i had to get a stomach sleeve. it was a wonderful moment because it thengave me the option to go crazy. if you’re going to surgically do somethingto me to stop me from swallowing that means i don’t have to worry about doing a sanediet. i can get nutty.
and being given the option to be nutty wasall i needed. i realized that not only am i not good atmoderation, i also don’t respect moderation. anyone i know who’s able to do moderationi don’t like them. the people i respect and love are people thatgo wild. i mean i don’t want to go into kerouac herebut the mad ones. no one brags about climbing a nice littleslope. you brag about climbing everest. so once my friend ray cronise who i can crayray, once cray ray told me that i could lose the weight but it was going to be really hard,it got really easy.
once you make something a challenge, you makesomething i can brag about, i can do it. so i wrote this book about me. it is more first person singular in it thanin a donald trump speech. i don’t’ write about you. if you take medical advice from a las vegasmagician you are an idiot who deserves to die. you have to do this for yourself and withyour proper medical professionals. that being said the first thing cray ray andi wanted to do was change my way of eating. it turns out everything about eating is habit.
it’s all habitual. you think you have a natural inclination tolike grilled cheese or donuts. not true. all we eat is habit. so i wanted to take a couple of weeks andchange my habit. and one of the really good ways to do thatthat worked tremendously for me is what’s called the mono diet which is just what youthink from the root, eating the exact same thing. and i could have chosen anything.
i could have chosen corn or beans or whatever. not hot fudge but anything. and i chose potatoes because it’s a funnything and a funny word. for two weeks i ate potatoes, complete potatoes– skin and everything and nothing added, nothing subtracted. when i say nothing subtracted i mean no skintaken off but also no water. you can’t cut it up and make it chips ina microwave. don’t take water out of it. leave the potato completely – so that meansbaked or boiled and not at any mealtime.
you don’t get up in the morning, eat a potato. you don’t eat it at lunch or dinner. mealtimes are obliterated. when you really need to eat, eat a potato. and over that first two weeks i lost i believe14 pounds. so already i’m a different person. but i also reset my taste buds. i don’t like to use the word addiction. it’s a loaded word and also i don’t thinkanyone really knows what it means.
but i was habituated to a great deal of salt,sugar and oil. after two weeks of potatoes that was gone. and the first ear of corn i had was candy. i mean it was just amazing. it was so sweet and so full of flavors andso salty even. i grew up in new england where there’s wonderfulfresh corn in the summer but i always drenched it in butter and salt. i never tasted it. then after that two weeks i went to, you know,bean stew and tomatoes and salads.
but still no fruit and no nuts. certainly no animal products. and i lost an average – these words arecareful – an average of .9 pounds a day. so i took off pretty much all the weight inthree or four months, in a season, in a winter. because we have so many calories our bodiesare constantly in summer. we’re preparing for winter that never comes. winter came for me. and that was 17 months ago. so i’ve kept the weight off for 17 months.
now two years is magic. very few people keep it off for two years. i’ve got seven more months to go. i think i have a shot at it. i feel better. i’m happier. i’m off most of my blood pressure meds. not all of them, it takes a while for thevascular system to catch up with the weight loss.
i have more fun. i believe i’m kinder. i’m embarrassed about that because i’man atheist as i’ve covered to this very camera before. so i should not believe in a mind-body separation. but somehow i believed that my mind couldstay healthy and happy even if my body was falling apart and i shouldn’t have everbelieved that. but i did. and now that i’m lighter i feel lighterand i feel happier.
and, you know, there’s a chance, my chancesof living longer for my children have gone up considerably. you know i lost my mom and dad when i was45 and a year of my life was in deep, deep mourning, you know. and there’s a very good chance my childrenwill have to go through losing their dad. and i’d much rather they do that when they’rea little older than having to do that when they’re 15. it turns out that being with my children ismore important to me than chocolate cake. all of that having been said now that i’mat target weight i also – this is important
– i also didn’t exercise while i was losingthe weight. exercising is body building. it’s a different thing. wait until you hit the target weight, thenyou exercise. then it’s easy. then it really does good. but while you’re losing weight make it winter. sleep a little more. get sluggish.
let your body just eat the fat that you’vestored up just the way you should. hibernate a little bit. let it eat the fat. be a little bit like a bear. now i eat no animal products, no refined grains. extremely low salt, sugar and fat. another way to say that same thing is twowords – whole plants. that’s all. that being said every couple of weeks at leasttwo weeks go by but every couple of weeks
i just eat without thinking. i eat, you know, my son says come on dad,eat like a man. i’ll have a pizza with him. i’ll have a hot fudge sundae with my daughter. if there’s a special occasion and i haven’tgone off program in two weeks i’ll eat whatever. do you know when i’m in new york if i haven’thad anything in two weeks i’ll have a slice of really great pizza or maybe a little bitof corned beef on rye. but that is an occasional rare inappropriatemeal. that’s a special thing.
it’s not a cheat. i don’t cheat because it’s part of myplan. the weird thing is though after the microbiomechanges and after the taste is reset i do not crave donuts. i do not crave pizza. i do not crave ice cream or hamburgers. they taste okay when i have them. well that’s really not true. chicken disgusts me now.
i used to love chicken. fried chicken, chicken and waffles. it’s kind of disgusting to me. eggs kind of disgust me. steaks i liked for a while and now that’skind of fading away, even hamburger. everybody i know that’s gone through this– we’ve lost all together a bunch of us like 5,400 pounds. is that right? yeah, 5,400 pounds.
all my friends. and i was just talking to a couple of whatwe call ourselves cronuts after ray cronise. i was talking to a guy last night and he wasjust saying now hamburgers have fallen away too. and i realized the other day i was in an airport. i was stuck for ten hours in an airport andi said, you know, i’m going to eat for entertainment because i’ve got nothing to do. and so i just said it’s been a few weekssince i ate badly, i’ll just eat whatever i want.
i realized after and i’ve been noticing– i had cookies, you know, i had a bagel. i hadn’t eaten any meat at all. and they’re all there, barbecue places,you know. there’s good ribs places. mcdonald’s. i just kind of – i lost the taste for itwhich is really remarkable because i would have never guessed that. i would have never guessed it. and if someone had told me oh by the way youjust won’t want this stuff.
so the kind of punchline to this whole thingis after this whole incredibly restrictive diet and all of this willpower and all ofthis climbing a dietary everest as i sit here right now on the big think i now eat whateveri want. but what i want has changed profoundly.
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