Weigh Less with Love

Prior to my career in healthcare and preventative medicine,  I was interested in acting, and had the fortuitous luck of starring in a Dannon yogurt commercial, which caught the attention of Norman Lear, the iconic television producer. He insisted I should be doing a comedy series and flew me to L.A. to meet his television partner, Bud Yorkin (who wound up hiring me and casting me to co-star in a television series with Melanie Griffith.) Acting work begot more work (under my maiden name  "Melissa Steinberg") and just like that I became a fairly successful television series actress and writer. Along the way, I met and became very good friends with a close group of well-known industry "movers and shakers" and actually award-winning Oscar and Emmy actors.

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During this time I transitioned from acting and writing as my passion in health and wellness flourished. Between my industry friends and my husbands (a well-known celebrity home builder) friend's, I had enough clients to get my nutrition and weight loss management company launched.

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In terms of my own weight problem, I believe the catalyst for me to finally deal with this compulsive overeating issue coincided when we sold our Pacific Palisades home in Los Angeles to Larry David and his wife, Laurie.  

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My husband and I then moved just up the street into the old estate of the late Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly. "I had what anyone would consider the perfect fairytale life": Two beautiful girls, a great husband and friends, a thriving career, and a palatial estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean, except I was miserable." I was in  'fat-girl hell", hating how I felt and looked and thought ‘princesses that live in palaces aren’t supposed to be portly’.”

 

My life-altering moment happened literally the first night in the new home when Stephen and I  clicked on the television and saw a rerun of a comedy series I had been a series regular on, called “Bizarre,” created and directed by the late Bob Einstein (of Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame). It was a silly sketch that relied on a play on words. (Please temper your response as this was the not-politically correct late 80's) So-- I portrayed a "hysterical" woman reporting to a police captain and policeman that I had just gotten (bursting into tears) “graped.” The two men say, “You mean—” I cut them off and scream “Grape! Grape! Don’t make me repeat it—Uck! it’s such an ugly word!” After I  finish describing what happened (substituting new words for the ones too painful to say) and I exit, the policeman asks the captain whether he believed my story. The captain responds, “Are you crazy? Who in their right mind would want to "grape" her? Did you get a look at the size of her bass?” (Referring to to my big fat ass.) Gulp!

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My Oprah “aha! moment” hit me all at once and forced me into immediate action. Pulling an all-nighter, and with fierce determination, I barreled through a maze of moving boxes that contained all of my academic books on clinical nutrition, health and diet disciplines, and authoritative reviews of the many weight loss protocols at that time. One particular article that I read advocated the benefits of a diet based on the total removal of carbohydrates, allowing just protein and fats in order to achieve a ketogenic, fat burning state.

 

By 8 a.m. the next morning, I was off to the library to formulate my own weight loss plan that incorporated the science of emptying the body’s reserve of carbohydrates to encourage this burning of stored fat.

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This protocol became a worldwide success when Dr. Atkins came out with his book, touting this blissful state of ketosis, where your hunger dissipates, your energy elevates and a host of other feel good physiological effects take over. “Finding Ketosis was like capturing the Holy-Grail”

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During this time, Dr. Atkins had just come out with his new “Diet Revolution,” advocating much of what I had discovered in my science texts, and it was the very protocol I was adhering to myself.

 

Cut to: Several months later, and a new me emerges, having lost 63 pounds. In fact, I have maintained this weight loss and my healthy weight range of 108-110 pounds for the past 25 years. I attribute the deep connection I share with my patients to the fact that I have walked the talk. I understand in a way that only a “true fat girl” can understand. It’s the shame, self loathing and anguish one experiences being so out of control and powerless with food.

 

Using the protocol that has worked for me, I have made it my life’s mission to “pay it forward".