I’ve always been a big guy…have always been a little bit heavier than I should be. I’ve never dieted in my entire life and always justified my taking a second and third helping with the tried and true maxim–“food is my only real vice.”
The only time I ever lost weight was in my Shana Aleph/post-high school yeshiva year (there was literally nothing to eat in the isolated yeshiva I went to!) and I have been gaining weight slowly and steadily ever since. Thankfully, with broad shoulders and a big frame, I’ve always managed not to feel too overweight. I never saw myself as “heavy” and my wife was happy to tell me that I wasn’t too overweight and never made me feel too guilty about it.
Oh sure, I went through brief fits where I said to myself that I MUST lose weight and I would proclaim to myself and all within earshot that I start eating better. This usually did not last more than a day or so at best…and life went on, the pounds adding up slowly.
Enter the Jewish Link of Bergen County. In addition to adding many gray hairs to my head, the paper also managed to add nearly 20 pounds to me within the first year of the paper’s life.
(What they don’t tell you about starting a newspaper is that in addition to being stressful, it literally requires that one be prepared to sit in front of a computer up to 20 hours per day which is far from ideal for losing weight and in fact acts more like an accelerant for weight gain.
Within a year, I went from being in the low 250s to 270+lbs. Worse than that, activities that I used to enjoy such as walking to and from our home to family in Bergenfield became exhausting. I also had trouble tying my shoelaces normally as I couldn’t bend down properly. I barely recognized myself in pictures. I had to do something.
An advertiser and friend, Stuart Greenbaum from Paramus, was in my office in June and we began to talk about losing weight. He started telling me about his son’s incredible weight loss and the company that he was involved with called Why Weight! What I mainly remember about that conversation was his promise to me that I would be able to lose up to 40 pounds in 40 days…AND not be starving AND not be ingesting anything that wasn’t natural. He had me hooked at 40 days.
I knew I could change my eating patterns and do what was needed for 40 days–a major change, that didn’t seem like a long time to me at all. And that’s exactly what I did.
To explain the diet quickly, it’s relatively simple yet strict. You must cut your intake to between 600-800 calories a day–two proteins, two fruits (only select fruits, of course), and three vegetables a day (again, not every vegetable is permitted.)
So how come you don’t starve to death? Because Why Weight provides you with a kosher certified bottle of all-natural drops available at many health food/nutrition stores containing items such as green tea, mangosteen, etc. that naturally suppressed my appetite and apparently aided in the fat-burning process. I literally lost nearly a full pound a day…and with the drops, I was not as hungry as I thought I would be. It kept my appetite down and enabled me to get through the days with far fewer calories.
Another critical part of the process was the daily text check-in that participants are required to send to Eliot Spiegel, who is one of the co-founders of the program, along with his brother, David Spiegel, Stuart Greenbaum, and Claire Kershenbaum of Teaneck. I was required to weigh myself every morning and text the results to Elliott. This responsibility and accountability element of the program also provided a strong mental motivation as I didn’t want to let Elliott down and report that I gained weight.
Last but not least, I had the support of my wife who faithfully cooked chicken, grilled burgers, cut vegetables, and chopped fruit throughout the 40-day period and continues to do so even today.
Will I keep it off? I can’t really answer that question….but according to Why Weight’s materials, the body’s metabolism will reset itself and will become accustomed to eating this way and eating better overall after the initial program period is complete. I can’t say anything for sure and I must confess to still having strong cravings for various baked goods and snacks. But I certainly feel better able to fend the cravings off.
Perhaps most importantly, I now know that I can lose the weight. How powerful that is to someone who never lost weight before. As they say…Why Weight?
To learn more about Why Weight, be in touch with Eliot Spiegel or Claire Kershenbaum anytime at: [email protected] or give them a call at: 201-870-1805.
By Moshe Kinderlehrer
