James Wright

Bart Copeland enjoys nothing better than sitting down with his two young sons on a Saturday morning and attacking a stack of pancakes smothered in syrup. But for the past two years, he’s been holding the butter. He has now reached his goal of 200 pounds, down from 255.

Okay, it’s a little harder than that. Both Vancouver men have put major effort into revising their eating habits over the last two years, under the guidance of nutrition coach Ramona Josephson. They have scientifically dissected each meal and snack and have learned how to find the right balance of proteins, carbs and fibre their bodies actually need each day, and how to avoid pitfalls, and where to cut their own bargains with that old devil, Fat.

Such as: a martini after a hard day’s work, with some rice chips and a nonfat dip. “I’m not going to start munching celery sticks with my martini,” says Wright, who is general director of the Vancouver Opera. “I’m sorry, but I’m just not going there.”

For Copeland, CEO of a digital technology firm, the non-negotiables go beyond his weekly pancakes to his beloved chocolate and cheesecake, but he has whittled those treats down to twice or thrice-weekly payoffs for sticking to the plan. Same reasoning behind the second glass of wine with a fine dinner. And maybe even a third, “if it’s a really great wine.”

Because the key to successful dieting is sustainability, says Josephson, and denial is a dead-end street. “For me, it’s about finding ways that I don’t feel cheated, I don’t feel like I’m being punished,” says Wright. “I work long days and have a lot of tension and stress, as do we all. Do I have to go home and be miserable?”

Copeland describes his payoff foods as “stars” – to be relished sparingly, not denied. “The trick is never to use those star foods as a source of satiating your hunger,” he says. “They’re for comfort, entertainment and reward.”

It was Copeland’s wife, a family doctor, who gently suggested he give Josephson a call two years ago. He never saw himself as overweight, and has always been athletic – riding his bike to work on a regular basis, skiing and playing sports with his sons. But throughout his thirties he was packing on a lot of weight, cycling a little more slowly, wearing a larger waist size. “Suddenly I was looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, this is not the guy I know.”

But he had no clue what to do about it, having grown up with the notion that you simply eat when you’re hungry – whatever fills you up.

“I vaguely remember being taught the four major food groups in high school, but it never stuck,” says Copeland. “It seems men are particularly ignorant about this – so many of us balloon at about age 31, 32. We obviously need to be sat down and taught: this is how to eat right. It’s so basic.”

Josephson concurs. A lot of her male clients don’t know the first thing about healthy eating. There is an upside to such ignorance, however: they haven’t messed up their metabolism like a lot of the yo-yo female dieters she sees.

“The more you diet, the more your body resists change,” she says. “Many women are so educated and so informed that it can actually be a problem. They tend to pick a bit of this and a bit of that from their reading, and they end up with something that doesn't add up. Men usually have less clutter around food.”

On the down side, men take more convincing to set foot in her door – or onto her coaching website (www.ramonajosephson.com). “Men socially can get away with more weight gain than women can, and that is why very often the issue that prompts men to take charge is a health scare.”

Both Wright and Copeland, fortunately, were driven by a desire to simply look and feel better. Wright posed the larger challenge, being single, a frequent traveler and working in a field where one is always entertaining and being entertained. At his last post, directing the opera company in Charlotte, North Carolina, he saw his weight balloon to 270 pounds, on a small-boned 5'9” frame. It was becoming lethal, not to mention humiliating.

It's hard not to see fat as a breakdown in control,” he tells me candidly. “Here I was, running a large arts organization, and I've got all these business people on the board looking at the financial statement, and I'm worrying about how they see me. Will they think: if he doesn't have the discipline to control his eating, will he be able to control the organization's spending?”

He tried a few different fad diets, with predictable results. Like so many others, the Atkins high-protein, low-carb diet led to the most dramatic results, and the most rapid relapse. “I knew it didn't make any sense eating all the cheese and fatty meats and eggs that I wanted – and I was right.”

Two years ago he read a newspaper article about Josephson's slow-but-steady approach to healthy weight loss, and he signed up for coaching sessions. Diligence and patience are prime requisites – along with honesty. Wright diarizes everything he eats, every day, and reviews it with her at their half-hour sessions every three weeks.

The first thing she taught him is how to shop for groceries – strategically, rather than recreationally. A typical gourmand, Wright was in the habit of shopping around town for all his favourite foods, picking up treats and takeout meals along the way. He had no idea what it added up to by the end of the day, except for the toll on his scales. Josephson introduced him to the notion of stocking up his fridge and freezer with meal staples: bulk chicken breasts; high-fibre breads; frozen berries; tubs of nonfat yogurt; cases of mineral water.

His old croissant-in-the-car breakfast became a larger and more satisfying sit-down meal at home, followed by a 30-minute walk to work. Instead of a bag lunch from the Urban Fair deli, he now brings a piece of grilled chicken or salmon and adds takeout salad or fruit and yogurt. For dinner: something tasty and satisfying, perhaps with pasta on the side, but not a whole plateful. Or a baked potato, with nonfat cottage cheese. Yam with a little carmelized sugar on top. A glass of wine. A piece of fruit to finish. Never a cookie – he gave those up for martinis.

Wright has learned not to schedule business lunches – “restaurants are never efficient places for meetings, anyway” – but if it can't be avoided he heads to one of his two favorite places (The William Tell or Baccus) where he knows he can order a delicious seafood salad without even opening the menu, thus avoiding the peril of temptation.

Another peril: excessive hunger. Josephson helps him plot meals and snacks in a way that keeps energy up all day, so he never feels the urge to gorge on whatever is closest to hand. If he has an evening reception, he always goes home first and fixes himself a light supper.

“It's about feeling you're in control of the situation, instead of vice versa,” he says. Staying that way takes a good deal of thought and planning. When he travels, he books low-fat airline meals. He finds hotels well located for walking, and leaves himself at least an hour of free time each day to do so. He always asks housekeeping to empty the mini-bar so he can restock the fridge with his preferred snack foods. And then, if it's a vacation, he relaxes his standards.

“I am not a saint,” he says. If he overeats now and then, he'll try to walk it off later. Or diet harder next month. Because he's in it for life – another of Josephson's dictums. “Falling off the wagon is part of life,” says Wright. “You have to just get over it, and get right back on.”

Wright plans on losing another 20 pounds. Copeland has met his goal, but won't be surprised if he continues losing weight gradually in the years ahead, because he's sticking to the program. “It's a lifestyle, not a diet,” he says. Which would make his coach very proud.

source: The Vancouver Sun, January 3 2005