Fear of Death and Surgery, Love of Baseball and Family Help Motivate an Omaha Doctor to Lose 147 Pounds ‘Brand New Day’ Talk About Motivation

Health & fitness. 180.

Knowsomeone whos battled the bulge, conquered that inner couchpotato or given up the cancer sticks?Tell us about the turnaround.Well share the best in this occasional series of diet and fitness success stories. E-mail nichole.aksamit@owh.com or write to: one-eighty, World-Herald Square, Omaha, NE 68102. Include name, address and daytime phone.

Dr. George Reynolds had battled the bulge all his life.

Despite countless diet attempts, the jovial pediatrician from California had added pounds with each major event — high school, college, medical school, residency, a new job in Omaha.

At national conferences and in meetings at Children’s Hospital, he’d grown accustomed to being the biggest guy in the room. And by last Christmas, he was near the breaking point. With 393 pounds on his 5-foot-9-inch frame, the 47-year-old director of Children’s pediatric intensive care unit had become morbidly obese.

He was on medications for diabetes. He got winded on short hikes with his family. He worried that he wouldn’t live long enough to see his three daughters graduate from high school, let alone college.

His own doctor suggested surgery. But, as much as he liked surgeons, Reynolds didn’t relish the idea of having one cut him open to shrink his stomach. He knew the complications could be severe.

So, on New Year’s Day, when he stumbled upon “My Big Fat Greek Diet” (a book by Dr. Nick Yphantides, another baseball-loving California doctor with weight issues), Reynolds followed in his footsteps. Sort of.

He couldn’t take the “radical sabbatical” Yphantides did — a yearlong vacation spent touring the country, hitting every major league ballpark, exercising at YMCAs, living on protein shakes and graduating to a Greek-based diet.

But he could make major league changes.

He ordered the protein powder Yphantides wrote about. And when it arrived six days later, he surrendered himself to a very low calorie, high-protein liquid diet. “I was just going to dabble in it for a couple weeks,” Reynolds recalled. “. . . Then it just kind of took on a life of its own.”

Reynolds asked his internist to monitor his blood work. He gradually introduced walking and other exercise. He started a blog – - an interactive Web-based journal he dubbed “Brand New Day” — for accountability and support. And he rewarded himself with family trips to spring training sessions and games at Midwestern ballparks.

So far, he’s lost about 147 pounds. He wants to lose 66 more (which would bring him down to his 180-pound goal weight). But already, he no longer needs diabetes medications. He hikes without fearing that he will collapse on the trail and be too heavy to be lifted out. And he plans to start eating real food Oct. 3, the first day after the end of the regular baseball season.

Though he doesn’t necessarily advocate the 600-calorie-a-day liquid diet — which requires medical supervision, nutritional supplements and routine blood work; comes with its own set of risks; and may not have longlasting results — he said that he is proof that stomach-shrinking surgery isn’t the only option for those who have hundreds to lose.

“I worry that people choose bariatric surgery when they really shouldn’t,” he said. “It really ought to be a last resort.”

Reynolds said he started the blog as an alternative to group support meetings or online diet forums. In addition to the occasional baseball trips and family outings, he credits the blog with helping him stick with the diet. He says he’s even a little depressed if he goes more than a couple days without new postings from friends, co-workers and family who check in and offer praise.

Recently, one regular reader wrote: “YOU ARE LOOKING FANTASTIC BABY!!!!”

The support, he says, seems to fuel his success.

“You can’t be a dieter and not engage in a fair amount of magical thinking,” Reynolds said. “I theorize that the more people who e- mail the blog, the more I lose.”

He packs the blog with humorous and sage quotes on baseball and willpower, parallels to the grit and determination of sports heroes and underdogs, a running commentary on the San Francisco Giants’ current season, reports from the latest family outing, ruminations on the limita- tions of airplane seats, and a surprisingly frank look at the emotional roller coaster that comes with making radical changes.

From one of his posts in March: “My bathroom scale hates me. That’s probably fair, cuz I hate (it) right back. For the last three days, my weight has been exactly 330.”

A reader’s response: “I thought I was the only one who got on my scale several times in a row to see if I could weigh just a few pounds less. Sometimes I even kick it a little to see if that will help! And, sometimes it does . . . just often enough to give me hope. . . . Keep up the good work!”

Reynolds’ once- or twiceweekly entries lead off with his current weight and the amount he has lost, in brackets. He includes photos, often of the good doctor posed sideways with his daughters, and a chart showing daily fluctuations in his ultimately downward- trending weight.

He says the reports keep him honest and on track.

“If you give up, you let not only yourself but everybody else down,” Reynolds said. “There is a huge risk that I could gain all this back, and so being public is a way of preventing that, I hope.”

The blog also features a list of current CD and book favorites and a photo gallery with images from the family adventures — trips to Disney World and baseball stadiums and hiking in Oregon — that he now has more ability to enjoy.

“Being fat changes your life and the lives of the people around you,” he said. “You don’t get to do things or you don’t try things because you know you can’t do them. . . . They don’t love you any less, but it changes what you call a family activity.”

He hasn’t eaten real food for nearly nine months. (When he has to attend a big function, he slams a shake beforehand and sips Perrier with lime while others drink cocktails and eat elaborate meals.) But Reynolds says he’s addicted to cooking shows like “Good Eats” on the Food Network and is teaching himself to cook healthful meals for his family.

“I’ve become a noneating foodie,” he said.

And, after almost nine months of nothing but chalky shakes, diet soda and chicken broth, his sense of taste and smell are off the charts. He’s now started a second blog, called Mangi Molto Beni (Italian for “Eat very well”), in which he discusses and features healthful recipes.

And come Oct. 3?

“I’ll eat some food,” he said. “Probably some grilled vegetables. I’ll start slow.”

His long-term plan is to shift to a Mediterranean-style diet, with emphasis on unprocessed vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats and lean meat.

“I’ll still have 40 or 50 pounds to lose,” he said. “And if it takes me a couple years to do that, that’s fine. Besides, nine months is long enough to be on a diet with no food.”

‘Brand New Day’ If George can do it, so can you. Here are some of his conclusions, adapted from a July post on his “Brand New Day” blog: Your body is not your friend. It hates you or it wouldn’t be so darn fat. Hate it back, and exercise the heck out of it. Portion control is a fraud and a scam. Some research suggests we’re each programmed to eat a certain weight of food each day, regardless of how many calories it contains. If diet changes are to be lasting, we need not necessarily eat tiny portions but rather get the amount our body wants from healthier, lower-calorie foods. Mediterraneans live longer than Americans, so eat like a Mediterranean. Whole, unprocessed foods are healthier and consistent with the Mediterranean diet. Cook. If you’re going to eat less, you might as well make sure you: a) know what you’re putting in your mouth and b) make darn sure it tastes good. Alcohol and weight loss do not mix. You’re smarter than a goldfish. You need to stop when you’re full. Remain accountable — to your friends, your loved ones and yourself.

Talk about motivation “I’m not just dieting. I’m changing my life. I have been overweight my entire life. Year after year, I promise myself I will lose weight. But year after year, I gain weight. It has to stop. I want to see my daughters grow up. I want to mist up at their college graduations and dance at their weddings. More than anything, I want to be a participant in my family’s life – - not just an observer.” — Dr. George Reynolds (in an excerpt from the introduction to his blog, www.georgereynolds.com)