On July 12, 2011, with a ring in my pocket, I got down on one knee and proposed marriage to my then-girlfriend, Jane Wexler.
As my knee hit the pavement, a seam in my trousers ripped.
This should make even the most indifferent dieter a little worried. Over the next year, I went on a low-grade mission to lose weight, but in August, with just over a month to go before my wedding, I kicked it into high gear with diet and exercise. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to get a haircut. And a beard trim. Here is my makeover journal …
40 days to go: 200 pounds. Booze and desserts are hereby out.
36 days: Jane gets a job offer. We go to Tom Colicchio’s Craft to celebrate. I don’t go near the scale the next day.
32 days: After a five-day vacation, I get on the scale. 202 pounds.
31 days: Salad for lunch. Hummus for dinner. Ten-mile walk. Diet is back on!
26 days: I’m assigned to write a story about smoking meat in your apartment. Diet goes off the rails again.
25 days: It’s time to call in the professionals. I meet Sebastian Morel-Ferreira, a personal trainer at New York Sports Club.
“Let’s take your measurements,” Sebastian says.
My weight slightly improved: 199. Plus, Sebastian took a measuring tape to my shoulders: 48 inches. Arms: 13½ inches. Chest: 44 inches. Stomach: 40 inches. Waist: 41 inches. (One’s shoulders and arms should ideally expand through fitness — tummy, chest and waist should contract.) My body-fat percentage is an unhealthy 32.6 percent.
24 days: First part of the workout is tolerable: running on a treadmill.
Next, Sebastian gets me on the floor for push-ups. “Uh, I can’t do that,” I say. I had just broken my wrist, and my doctor had specifically advised against it.
Instead, Sebastian gets me in a push-up position, being held up by my forearms, and instructs me to move my legs like I’m scaling a mountain.
Then there’s an exercise with a big, heavy jump-rope. And more running.
“Not bad!” says Sebastian. “A lot of people throw up their first day.”
I instantly feel dizzy.
22 days: As I’m registering my NYSC card, I tell the manager of the gym I’m getting married in a few weeks. “You don’t have any idea how many brides I’ve trained,” she says.
“Any grooms?”
She looks taken aback by the question.
“I’m not sure,” she says after a minute.
12 days: My mother has recommended a spot in the East Village called Hair Kuwayama for a $70 haircut.
“You look like that filmmaker — the documentary filmmaker,” says the hairdresser.
“Which one?”
After a few moments, the name finally dawns on her: “Michael Moore.”
Say what? “Not in your body,” she says. “Just in the face.”
At least I have 12 more days.
10 days: Time to do a weigh-in. 197. Not as great as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared.
3 days: I go to the Art of Shaving and have the first professional beard trimming of my life from a Russian named Boris Mirzakandov. (Boris also gamely agrees to shave the hair between my eyebrows.) For $35, I might go back.
Final weigh-in: 195. Shoulders are a muscular 50 inches. Arms are 15 inches (three more than when I first came to Sebastian). And I had lost in all the right places: My chest is now 41 inches; stomach 37 inches; waist 38 inches. And my body-fat percentage is now 20 percent.
The big day: As I step out to the back of the farm where we’re having our wedding and I see my gorgeous bride in her wedding gown, the tears of joy come.
Dinner. Dancing. And as we strut our stuff on dance floor, I do not look like Michael Moore.