RD201906

Any day that I had to go to the airport was the worst day of

my life, and as a traveling appliance salesman, I had to fly quite a bit.

On this day in 2010, I was assigned to a middle seat. I was so big

I couldn’t fit down the aisle facing forward, so I walked sideways,

like a crab. I could see the other passengers’ fear like cartoon thought

bubbles above their heads: “Please, God, don’t let that humongous

guy be in the seat next to me!” I was five foot ten and weighed be-

tween 340 and 360 pounds; the exact number depended on whether

you took my weight before or after one of my gargantuan meals.

a whole-food, plant-based diet. That

was all it took, he said. He lost weight

without feeling hungry, and he was

healthier and stronger than he’d been

since his twenties. I never imagined

my sign would come from Bill Clinton,

but here he was.

I had no idea what a “whole-food,

plant-based diet” was, but I ran with

it, even though I couldn’t actually

run to save my life. I went online and

searched for a doctor who could help

me. I came across Preeti Kulkarni, a

naturopathic doctor. I wasn’t sure ex-

actly what that meant, but I felt hope-

ful when she agreed to see me the

next day.

S

o tell me about yourself,” said

Dr. Preeti (as she liked to be

called). I told her I had type 2

diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood

pressure. I was on all sorts of meds for

those.

“If you stick to what I tell you, there’s

a good chance you won’t need any of

those in a few months,” she said. “At

When I finally squeezed into my

seat, the seat belt wasn’t long enough

to fit around my 52-inch waist. They

never were.

The flight attendant said they had

run out of seat belt extenders. They

were going to have to get one from

another plane.

More than 30 minutes passed.

“Great,” said the slender man in the

window seat next to me. “I’m going to

miss my connection because you’re

so fat!”

I wanted to die. Right there, in that

seat, I wished my life would just end.

I

woke up the next morning

knowing that I needed to change.

I started looking for signs that

might lead me toward a better life—

and immediately a sign showed up.

I turned on the TV and happened

to catch an interview with former

president Bill Clinton. He looked fit

and full of energy, about half his for-

mer size. He said he’d been under

the care of a doctor who put him on

112 june 2019

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