Down Size: The 12 Truths for Getting You a Leaner, Healthier, Better Body - Softcover

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Ted Spiker is co-author of the bestselling You series with Drs. Mehmet C. Oz and Michael Roizen and the bestselling Abs Diet series with David Zinczenko. An associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida, Spiker has worked as an editor at Men’s Health magazine, writes for many magazines, and is the author of The Big Guy Blog for RunnersWorld.com. He lives in Gainesville, Florida.

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Introduction: Easier Said Than Done

As I scrolled through the comments on my semester’s-end evaluations (the place where students can rate their professors anonymously), I stopped the cursor on one sentence. In its brevity, it whispered among the hundreds of other observations. In its content, it sounded like a stadium full of cowbells, amplifying the angst I feel every burger-loving day. Most students use the rating system to praise or slam the class, the readings, or the instructor, but one person, under the heading “Additional Comments,” had noted, “Wear slacks that aren’t as baggy.”

Though I could debate the appropriateness of an undergraduate chirping about my appearance, I couldn’t argue with the comment’s simplicity and veracity. Sure, your class is fine. Your pants? Not so much, big boy.

I’ve lived most of my adult life in an XXL body with a shape that’s genetically and gender-ly damning: I’m a man with a classic pear shape. I carry my extra weight not in my gut, but in my hips, butt, and thighs. Therefore, pants with an accurate waist size fit too tight from belly button to knee, and pants large enough to scoot over my hips droop from my waist like a turkey’s wattle. I have not found an off-the-rack, well-fitted pair of pants since 1989 (probably the same year I last said “belly button”), and if given the choice, especially when on display in front of 275 students, I’ll opt for too baggy over too tight. That means I leave the house just about every day with the question that has hung over my head for most of my adult life: Why can’t I get the body I want?

As early as I can remember, I have directed too much thought and worry toward food, fat, and body parts that jiggle. I have cringed about my weight, wished for a different shape, and dreamt about substituting the s for an n in the word husky. I have spent decades feeling the way I imagine most people with body issues do: a psychological cocktail of frustration, embarrassment, and middle fingers to the mirror. Anyone who has experienced a demonic relationship with a scale knows too well the inner conflict. On one hip, you have the long-term pursuit of a better body. On the other, you have the short-term pleasure of spicy sausage sandwiches.

The worst part of it? It’s not as if I haven’t known what to do. Besides teaching, I’m a health writer who has written hundreds of thousands of words about weight loss, diets, and fitness. As a former staffer at abs-happy Men’s Health magazine and coauthor of the YOU: The Owner’s Manual series of books by Dr. Mehmet Oz (a New York–Presbyterian/Columbia University heart surgeon and host ofThe Dr. Oz Show) and Dr. Michael Roizen (the chief wellness officer of the Cleveland Clinic), I’ve spent hours and hours talking with doctors, trainers, and nutritional gurus about eating and exercise. I’ve interviewed hundreds of leading medical experts from places such as Yale and Harvard, I’ve examined weight-loss studies, and I’ve even tried workouts designed for elite athletes.

I also mainline whipped cream.

That’s what makes the arena of dieting so maddening. Even people who don’t deal with the subject professionally know the what. For the most part, we accept the foundational equations of weight loss. Vegetables > fried foods. Exercise > the couch. When eating a scoop of chocolate chips, one should not measure that scoop via dump truck. Most of us also know the übertruth, too: What you eat matters the most.

But the reality is that even if we know what’s right, it hasn’t worked. Not for me, not for millions.

Why? Because that simple “what you eat” is determined not only by a chart of good foods and bad foods, but also by so many nuances, complexities, emotions, and psychological and lifestyle factors that make it difficult for anyone to lay out the perfect diet that works for everyone. That’s why I believe that most eating plans can work. And most eating plans can fail.

Along with all the people who weigh more than they want or who have shapes they don’t like, I have spent way too much time being on diets, thinking about diets, and feeling guilty about going off diets—and repeating the cycle again and again. Many of us desperately try to lose weight, and we pledge that we’ll do anything to do so. But something’s not working. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 70 percent of American adults are overweight or obese, the weight-loss industry sees more than sixty billion dollars in revenue every year. These are the two key statistics that perfectly summarize the ping-pong nature of our dilemma: Get fat, get stuck, get going, get stuck, get mad, get sad, get a cupcake. Every so often, whether we’re inspired by a new year or shamed by a double-chinned Facebook photo, we sink our energies into the sexiest of potential solutions—solutions that can work, should work, and do work. But along the way, we forget the most important part of the weight-loss equation: We’re human, and we all have a story.

The short of mine: I’m in my mid-forties, six foot two, and have spent most days unsatisfied with my weight and physique. I’ve lived most of my recent adult years in the 220- to 250-pound range—that’s an overweight-to-obese body mass index of 28–32. I left college at around 180 pounds (a normal BMI of 23) and weighed nearly 280 some fifteen years later (a BMI of 36, which is defined as obese). (Note: BMI is not the only marker for health, and it has its flaws, but it does provide some parallelism for understanding height and weight ratios if you don’t know what a six-foot-two man should weigh.) I love to exercise and have completed mud obstacle races and a marathon. I’ve also won eating contests and broken a bicycle seat. In my job as a writer and professor, I’ve been immersed in health information, so I know the basic facts, as do most of us. Fact: Obesity is really a proxy for other life-shorteners, because being overweight is associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and so many other health issues. Fact: Losing weight reduces the risk factors for many of these conditions. Fact: Our health care system is under enormous pressure because of obesity-related problems. Fact: Many experts will tell you that a reasonable expectation for weight loss should be one to two pounds a week, though nobody wants to wait that long. Fact: I ate a bowl of Samoa Girl Scout Cookie–flavored ice cream as I wrote those previous four facts.

For my whole life, I’ve battled to turn an increase in information into a decrease in pants size.

I knew it, but I didn’t get it.

Now I do. Down to a satisfying-for-me two-hundred-pound range, I’ve learned that weight loss and body acceptance are only partially about foods and plans and calories and training. They’re about art, science, and soul.

What I’ve learned is that for any man or woman who wants to lose weight or get healthier or simply learn to accept that his or her body is perfectly imperfect, it comes down to more than grilled chicken salads. Most of us can’t just follow a step-by-step eating plan indefinitely and expect lasting results. It comes down to figuring out not the rules, but the truths—the principles that can guide your actions, that can steer you in the right direction, that can bail you out when things go wrong, that can take into consideration that your brain (and not your belly) is the lead character in the dramatic performance that is weight loss. When you figure out the truths,...