6

It's Not about Size, It's
about Health: Obesity
and Food Choices

WE CAN, AS A SOCIETY, be astoundingly cruel to people who are obese. They may be creative, caring, and hopeful people, but we don't see that. Far too often, we see only their weight.

What does it say about us that we act as though you can take the measure of a person by the size bathing suit he or she wears?

Maybe this partially explains why obese people are flocking to a restaurant outside Phoenix, Arizona whose name—and I am not making this up—is the Heart Attack Grill. The restaurant, which seats 100, is often packed. It offers what owner Jon Basso calls “an environment of acceptance to overweight customers who are typically demonized by society.”

At this restaurant, however, it's a little more than acceptance. The Heart Attack Grill literally celebrates obesity. Customers who are over 350 pounds eat for free. A scale is strategically placed at the center of the restaurant so that other diners can watch the weigh-ins. When customers exceed 350 pounds, says the restaurant's owner, “Everybody applauds and cheers for them. A big smile comes over their faces, and for once they are finally accepted. They are not picked on here.”

It's all made to seem sexy, too. Waitresses, all of them young and slender, are dressed as scantily clad nurses, wearing high heels, thigh-high stockings, and skimpy outfits revealing lots of cleavage.

It sounds like fun.

Except when it isn't.

In 2011, the 575-pound spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill, a 29-year-old man named Blair River, died—not from a heart attack, but from pneumonia. He had been the public face of the restaurant and the star of its advertising. He was also the single father of a five-year-old girl.

At nearly 600 pounds, Blair River ate all his meals free at the restaurant.

Heart Attack Grill owner Jon Basso did not deny the link between the young man's excessive weight and his tragically premature death. “I hired him to promote my food,” said Basso, “[but his] life was cut short because he carried extra weight.” Ironically, the restaurant's motto is “Food Worth Dying For.”

Of course, no one is forcing anyone to eat at the Heart Attack Grill or to stuff themselves full of unhealthy food. It's a free country—in theory anyway—and we're free to eat ourselves to death if we want to do so.

Some would say that the Heart Attack Grill steps over a line, to the point of enabling dangerous food addictions. There is certainly nothing remotely resembling healthy on the menu. Customers can purchase cigarettes, but only the non-filtered type. On the wall are prominent displays advertising menu items like “Quadruple Bypass Burgers” that carry 8,000 calories, and “Flatliner Fries” that are deep-fried in pure lard. Perhaps joking, owner Basso says, “We're in the front lines of the battle against anorexia.”

But Blair River's death is no joke. And it would be a mistake to make light of the medical consequences of obesity. The CDC tells us that obese people have a substantially higher risk for not only heart attacks, but also for diabetes, most cancers, and many other types of cardiovascular disease.

Heart Attack Grill owner Basso doesn't plan any changes on account of Blair's death. Scantily-clad waitresses will still regularly exhort customers to eat all they can. He's making money and thinks the restaurant is great fun.

But is it funny that we have become the most obese society in the history of the world? Two-thirds of the residents of the United States are now either overweight or obese. So many children are developing the most common type of diabetes that medical authorities have had to change the name of the disease. What was formerly called “adult-onset diabetes” is now called “type-2 diabetes” and now accounts for 90 percent of the diabetes in the country. Its incidence in children is skyrocketing.

It's easy to point our fingers and pass judgment. We can blame fast-food companies that aggressively market unhealthy foods to children, we can blame people who overeat because of a lack of will power, and we can blame parents for feeding their children poorly. We can blame harmful ingredients like trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup, and we can blame the pressures of modern life that turn people into addicts of one kind or another.

We can play the blame game ad infinitum, but whom does that help? Does it help those with weight problems that leave them vulnerable to disease and prone to feelings of shame?

What if we were instead to learn from people who have taken the arduous, difficult, and ultimately joyful journey from obesity to health?

Recently, I have had the wonderful good fortune to become friends with a young woman named Natala Constantine and her husband Matt. They've been married for seven and a half years. At their wedding, Natala was morbidly obese.

She knew something about the abuse endured by obese people in our society. By then, she had lost track of the number of times she had been humiliated in public, called ugly names by strangers, and physically hurt by people who felt entitled to treat her as less than human because of her weight.

People constantly told Natala she was lucky Matt had fallen in love with her, and that he must be amazing to be able to look past her weight.

A week after the wedding, she was diagnosed with severe diabetes. Her blood had become so acidic that her organs were shutting down, and doctors seriously doubted she would survive. She was twenty-five years old.

Five years later, Natala was taking up to thirteen different medications and as much as 200 units of insulin a day. She ate what many people would call a healthy diet—lots of animal protein and almost no carbohydrates. She had been told that a diet high in animal protein was the only way she could control her diabetes, but it wasn't working. She was working out at a gym for two to three hours a day, but at 5’2” tall, she weighed close to 400 pounds.

When Natala developed an infection in her right calf, doctors told her that part of her lower right leg might need to be amputated. But then a friend, whom Natala described to me as “a vegan and into yoga,” suggested that she consider a natural approach to her diabetes, and that she should start to think of food as medicine. “I wanted to smash her,” Natala admits. “How dare she suggest something so simple! Didn't she know that I had been to the best doctors? That I was on the best diet? That I was working out?”

But Natala did take her friend's advice to heart, and decided to go on what she calls a “100 percent healthy plant-strong diet.”

“For the first three weeks,” she says, “I felt as though I was ridding myself of much more than animal products. Food had a hold on me that I could not even conceptualize prior to those three weeks. I would sit in my car and cry outside of sub shops, just wanting a tuna melt.”

It was very rough, but Natala stayed with it and the results were nothing short of miraculous. In thirty days, she was off all insulin.

The physicians she was seeing for her diabetes took a look at her numbers, were amazed, and wanted to know how she had done it. “I told them I had adopted a completely plant-based diet. They didn't seem surprised at all, and told me that plant-based diets were helping to reverse diabetes. When I asked why they had not suggested it, they told me because it isn't practical.”

Aghast, she asked her doctor, “Do you think it's practical to be thirty years old and lose a leg?”

She walked out of that doctor's office and never went back. “Everything changed from that moment,” she recalls. “I slowly decreased all the other diabetes medicines I was on. I lowered my blood cholesterol without drugs. I lowered my blood pressure without drugs. I corrected my hormonal problems without drugs. Many diabetics go blind, but I reversed the nerve damage in my eyes. And that infection in my leg? It completely healed. The arthritis in my feet? It went away.”

Today, Natala Constantine has lost almost 200 pounds, is medicine-free, and continues to make great strides toward her ideal weight. Her diabetes is in complete remission. I've met her and I can attest that she is one of the happiest and most radiant people you could hope to meet. A concert violinist, she exudes joy.

And her husband, Matt? While Natala was dealing with diabetes, he was not only obese, but also suffered from severe food allergies. Eating a few tomatoes sent him to the emergency room. His food allergies dominated his life. And now? His improvement, on a 100 percent healthy plant-strong diet, is almost as miraculous as his wife's. A concert pianist, he has lost ninety pounds and is now at a healthy weight; his food allergies are entirely behind him.

It's quite a world we live in it, isn't it? On the one hand, we have the Heart Attack Grill, whose 575-pound spokesman died at the age of twenty-nine. On the other, we have people like Natala and Matt Constantine, who have taken a different path.

We live in a society that tends to stigmatize the obese cruelly. The Heart Attack Grill represents one form of response. It can feel temporarily empowering to turn shame into defiance. When society points its finger at you, blaming you and denying its own illness, there is a natural urge to send a message back to society with your middle finger.

But is there a healthier alternative? What about entering what Veronica Monet calls “the shame-free zone” while making a commitment to greater well-being and happiness? What about refusing to internalize society's negative messages, and instead building a healthy life of joy, confidence, and beauty?

Cutting back on heavily sweetened beverages like sodas and juice-like drinks is a good place to start. Eating fewer processed foods and more whole foods is another good step. Getting exercise helps a lot. And the more of your nutrients you can get from plant sources, the better.

Eat a healthy plant-strong diet, and your body will thank you for the rest of your life.

After the article on which this chapter is based was published on Huffington Post, I received many emails from people who told me of their weight-loss experiences. Here are just two that brought me joy to read. Gary Paulson wrote:

Just read your article in the Huffington Post, and I wanted to take a moment and tell you that it was both informative and enjoyable. I recently went through my own battle with weight loss and was able to lose almost 200 pounds with the assistance of a low-calorie, high-protein plant-based diet. One of the things I truly enjoyed about your article is your attempt to get past the infinite blame game, and open up to an honest dialogue about some potential solutions for the obesity crisis currently facing America. Moreover, you did so in a way that was both humane and sensitive to those currently struggling with weight issues, and all the stigmas that go along with it.

Actress-singer Kate Chapman used to get only the “fat lady” parts. Now that she's lost weight and is half her former size, she has the stamina to perform show after show and dance from curtain to curtain; she is taking Broadway by storm. She wrote:

Thank you so much for your article in Huffington Post today. I, too, have reversed obesity by eating a mostly plant diet, and for the first time in forty years, I don't struggle with my weight. Three years ago, I finished my 100 pound weight loss, and have maintained the entire loss since then, without effort. I thank you for writing what you did. I was in Phoenix for work last year and saw the Heart Attack Grill. It made me sad then, and makes me sadder now. Thank you for helping to get the word out that those of us who have reversed the trend for ourselves really can help others to lead healthier, happier, and less encumbered lives. Maybe if we all work together, we can turn it around.