RUSH: I went out to dinner last night. This is fun, too. I’m on a diet. I’ve not made a big deal about this because I’ve done it so many times, but I’m down 30 pounds in 40 days and have taken five notches off the belt. I’ve been hibernating for the most part this month. You’ve gotta do that. You don’t have to, but I choose to. I haven’t gone to any restaurants but I’ve gone to people’s homes for dinner. Last night, I did another one. What’s really tough is everybody else gets sauced and I’m sitting there drinking water — and then all they want to do is talk about the diet. Everybody in the world has done diets but they act like this is a first, that they’ve never seen it before.
‘How are you doing? Well, looks like you’re losing too fast!’
‘Well, what are you eating? Well, my gosh, you have to eat more!’
‘No, not if you want to go on a diet.’
‘Well, does it taste good?’
‘Yeah, if you get your mind set. Yeah, you’re on a diet. You don’t expect to be eating five course meals every night.’
‘Can you drink?’
‘No, alcohol shuts down the whole weight loss process.’
‘Oh, I could never do that.’
‘Well, then why are you asking me?’
Here I am, the expert at the moment who has lost 30 pounds in 40 days and they’re all telling me, ‘Oh, I can’t do that! I can’t do that.’ If you want to do it, you do it! If you don’t want to do it, you don’t. Don’t act like you halfway want to do it, and then chicken out.
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RUSH: I casually mentioned at the opening of the program today, almost two hours ago, that I had been on a diet here and I’ve lost 30 pounds in 40 days. Of course, it was a casual mention. It was not a big trumpeted thing, but people still heard it.
‘How did you do it?’ I’m being asked in the e-mail.
It’s a thousand to 1400 calories a day. I vary the number of calories so my body doesn’t get used to a restricted amount. The fewer calories you eat, your body will slow down and becoming accustomed to it, thinking, ‘A-ha! I’m being starved. I’m going to start storing this stuff. I’m going to start burning it not as quickly.’ So you gotta go up and down in your caloric intake. It’s that simple. I’ve done this so many times. It’s just, every diet you do works.
Another question, ‘How do you plan on keeping it off?’
I don’t. I’m not under my illusion that I’m going to keep the weight off. Nobody that loses weight keeps it off. Joe Torre’s done it and a couple of other people, but it’s very, very rare that anybody keeps the weight off that they lose. My goal here is to lose enough weight that it’s going to take three to four years to gain it back rather than one. So I can look forward to three or four years of fun instead of just one. (interruption) What? It will not!
‘With consistent exercise…’ You know, I get so frustrated. Everybody keeps hammering this at me: ‘You gotta do exercise to lose weight. You gotta do exercise to keep it off.’
You know, here I am. I’m sitting here, at this moment, expert in this. Of all the people here on the staff, I am the only one losing weight. Yet they’re all telling me that what I’m doing is wrong. Thirty pounds in 40 days! I haven’t exercised one shred above what I normally do, which is pretty much zero, other than playing golf. That’s another thing. I know I’m not going to turn into gym rat or an exercise freak. I’m not going to go jogging, or walking down the street. You gotta know who you are. You gotta be honest about who you are. You can’t go out there and make commitments, to chain yourself, that you know you’re not going to make. Losing weight is about calories, intake versus outgo. Exercise is fine, don’t misunderstand. It’s got many benefits. But if you want to go out and eat 3,000 calories a day, the amount of exercise you’ve gotta do to burn a thousand of them is something I know I’m not going to do. Marathoners can do it and professional athletes. All they do is work out, but hey, that ain’t me.
My life is mental exercise.