Page 80 - summer2016

tasted good had changed. I ended up crumpling
RM: When I realized that I'd been eating all of up the bag with some chips still in it, and I threw
the wrong foods, I got on the phone and called it on the floor of the car. That was the moment
my wife back home in Virginia. “I would like I was pretty much done with those cravings.
us to change the way we eat,” I said. “I think we So the more you continue to eat whole foods,
need to go back to eating the way our grandpar- the more those cravings for industrial overly
ents ate.” Now at the time I weighed over four processed foods will subside.
hundred pounds, and my wife was pushing two
hundred pounds, so we were both overweight. It HLG: Did you feel like the people around you
just so happened that she was thinking along the were thinking “This is another fad diet, he's
same lines; she knew that we were both headed going to go back to 'regular' eating,” or could
in the wrong direction. We have two girls and they sense it was for real this time?
they were gaining weight also; we knew we were
doing something wrong. She didn't give me any RM: Nobody was really saying anything to me
pushback on it but said, “I think this is a great at work. At home, my wife and I began to go
idea.” So while I was still in New York, she and for walks in the neighborhood, as part of our
my daughters went to our kitchen cabinets and change. I had a next door neighbor who did
took out every box, every can, everything that comment that I was losing weight and looking
had a list of ingredients you needed a labora- better. But for the most part people didn't say
tory to reproduce, everything with items in the much about it.
ingredients list that you couldn't pronounce. And
from that point we started going to the grocery HLG: They probably didn't know what to make
store and buying whole foods and cooking our of it. The important thing is that you and your
own meals. wife were feeling the difference. I bet your girls
were feeling the difference also.
HLG: So it took effort, it didn't just happen. Did
you have cravings? Did you want to go back to RM: Yes we were, within a very short period of
the old stuff? time. We felt better—I mean really better. And
there was a period where I was dropping six
RM: There was one incident that occurred after pounds a week. And I wasn't counting calories
we had made this change. We had been eating or exercising too much. I was just eating real
whole foods and cooking our own food—and food and going for walks in the morning. The
it was delicious. I had forgotten what home- weight just fell off and you know that success
cooked meals tasted like. And after several breeds motivation. Feeling better, seeing myself
months, I started losing weight—I was making get a little bit smaller and my clothes fitting bet-
progress and feeling good. Then one day—it ter—that just kept me going.
must have been a stressful day—after I got off
work I stopped at the store and picked up a bag HLG: And you were saying earlier that diets
of potato chips, not a small bag—it was a family are not sustainable. What do you mean by that,

It’s a diet sized bag. And so I’m eating this bag of chips as Richard?
I’m driving home, and you know what you can't
that we can eat just one. I was almost through with the bag RM: Diets don't last; I like to say that diets don't
live with for of chips when I realized that they didn't taste work long term. Diets can work short term but

a long, long good. Why was I still eating them? Instead of really what you want is a long-term solution for
making me feel better like chips used to—at losing weight. Long term with these diets you
time, for least temporarily—they made me feel worse. not only gain the weight back but gain extra. So
generation It was more than guilt about eating something the approach to dieting needs to be something
after that I knew that I shouldn't—literally those chips that is sustainable, which means it has got to be
did not taste good and I think that's because my something that you can do not just for a tempo-
generation. taste buds had changed. My general idea of what rary period of time but for the rest of your life.
80 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2016 Wise Traditions