Michael Moore
What He Did: Checking into Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa, a $4500-a-week luxury weight loss spa in Miami, helped the director of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko shed 70 pounds.
Why He Did It: Moore just got sick of being overweight and wanted to get healthy.
What He Ate: Fiber-heavy foods (at least 35 grams a day!), making sure he was fueling himself with stuff heavy in weight but low in calories. Roger Ebert got Moore hooked on Pritikin, which theorizes that eating heavy foods naturally creates the same thing as gastric bypass, making you feel full faster. When he was most serious about losing weight, he cut out salt, white flour and sugar.
His Workout: You won’t see Moore at the gym doing the 300-rep Spartan workout—his main focus was to “eat less crap and move around more.” Hey. It’s better than nothing.
Plus: Moore says all overweight people have three things in common: “We all drink diet soda but never lose any weight because it's so packed with sodium that it actually works against you, because it's breaking down the cellular structure by retaining fluid; number two, overweight people sleep less than seven hours a night, they never get a full night's sleep, which causes eating during the day to make up for it because you're tired, you need energy; and number three, we never eat. We put off eating because we're trying to not eat and then we get hungry by not eating.
Michael Says: “Where I come from in the Midwest, I’m considered normal. That’s not good.”
Difficulty Level: 3 for the "eating less crap and moving around more," 1 for blowing thousands on an expensive weight loss spa retreat.
