By Anupy Singla
Special to The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — Health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz was in town to tape “The Oprah Winfrey Show” when he was approached by one of the city’s finest: a firefighter.
“A burly gentleman came up and said, ‘More of us are dying from the fork than from fires,’” Oz recalls of that bleak January day. And that’s when he says the idea came to him — to try and use three local firefighters as examples of the magic that can happen when they actually make a commitment to clean up their eating habits.
It’s no secret that many firehouses are an ode to unhealthy foods: heavy, fried, stick-to-the-ribs kind of options that many of the very civil servants that we rely on to help us in our time of need are paying the price for eating. Heart disease, diabetes and excess pounds are all results of the lifestyle that’s often taken for granted in a firehouse, says Oz, who quickly got to work after that chance encounter earlier this year.
The first step was finding three firemen who needed to make a drastic change and were up to the challenge: to lose 4 inches off their waist in 60 days. They began with a brave tell-all appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show” that aired in February. It’s now coming up on their two months and time to talk results.
Mauricio “Mo” Tirado is on Truck 19 stationed at Engine 14 house, 1125 W. Chicago. At 24, he’s the rookie of the three and also the sous chef of his firehouse. At 5-foot-10, he began the process as the heaviest, weighing in at 284 pounds with a waist size of 49 inches.
Egnechles “Iggy” Brown is the 47-year-old driver of Tower Ladder 34 at 79th and South Chicago Avenue. He has 17 years on the job. Brown, who is 5-foot-11, weighed in at 235 pounds with a 43-inch waist.
The 5-foot-11 Doug Crowley is with Engine 116 at 60th and South Ashland. With a family history of heart disease, at age 37 he was on cholesterol-lowering medication with a 44-inch waistline and 237 pounds.
Oz enlisted the help of Austin, Texas-based firefighter Rip Esselstyn, once a professional triathlete and author of The Engine 2 Diet, who has helped hundreds of other firefighters around the country change their relationship with food.
“Firehouses are the dumping ground of all of America’s leftovers — you couldn’t create a better atmosphere for unhealthy eating,” Esselstyn says. “It’s such a masculine culture — they think you need to eat dairy, eggs and meat and if you don’t you’re a little sissy girl.”
It’s these supposedly macho eating habits, he says, that are leading to overweight firefighters, which can be a liability at a fire, especially if they can’t run up a ladder, pull hundreds of pounds of hose or run up steps without getting winded.
For two months Tirado, Brown, and Crowley were told to eliminate all cholesterol from their diets by avoiding meat, dairy and extracted oils, essentially following a vegan diet as well as an exercise program. For guys who once could eat meat at breakfast, lunch and dinner, the parameters came as a shock.
“At first when I was on the show, I was like OK each one of us will give up one of these three things,” Tirado says. “When Dr. Oz told us it was all of them, I thought, are you nuts? You’re crazy.”
Their 60 days are almost over, and the three say they feel like different people. Each is between 20 and 30 pounds lighter. Crowley is off his cholesterol meds, Brown can see his abs again and Tirado is learning to live for oatmeal and hearty salads. The key for Dr. Oz was targeting their bellies — where unhealthy fats are largely stored and can wreak havoc on a person’s health.
“If you can lose inches off the waistline, as soon as the process starts you can see blood pressure come down, diabetes come down and cholesterol levels get better,” he says.
When reached for a phone interview, Crowley was shopping at Whole Foods Market, buying kale, Swiss chard, organic carrots and the high-protein grain quinoa, which he learned to do after grocery shopping and cooking lessons with Esselstyn.
“The way I taste food is different,” Crowley says. “Before, everything was like adult baby food — soft and cold — burgers with ice-cold sodas.”
Though Dr. Oz does say eating quality meat and dairy in small portions can be part of a healthy lifestyle, for these three firefighters going cold turkey — or tofu — was key to recalibrating their eating habits.
“I wanted to reboot their taste buds,” Dr. Oz says. “I have no problem with meat and dairy, but I don’t want them to be the foundation of your diet.” Oz says at most, only a quarter of your plate should be devoted to meat and dairy. The rest should be vegetables and grains.
This journey of food and exercise has not been easy for the three men, especially because they are surrounded by temptations daily. But they kept with it, they say, because they made a commitment to one another and had a strong support base that included their fellow firefighters, their own families, and each other. Esselstyn was always only a phone call away.
Brown says navigating grocery store aisles that he’d rarely entered before when he largely ate meat and processed foods was like entering a “foreign country.” But, the biggest shock to him came when he looked at his grocery bill. He says he’s learned it’s not as expensive to buy fruits and vegetables vs. expensive meats and canned or boxed foods. And, with his new way of eating and thinking, he’s running faster than the other firefighters on his shift.
Though Tirado had the toughest time of the three getting used to new foods like portobello mushroom sandwiches and sweet potato-vegetable lasagna, he says he is getting addicted to the way he feels.
“The headaches went away, I feel lighter on my feet and I can eat all the salad and beans that I want and still have all the energy for a fire,” he says.
The real question is whether they all met their challenge of 4 inches off the waist in 60 days and if they’ll stick with the diet. The three will appear on “The Dr. Oz Show” again to reveal their results. As for continuing with the diet, they all say they never plan to go back to their prior unhealthy and mindless ways of eating.
“My whole relationship with food has changed,” says Crowley. “If I’m going to eat [animal] protein, it’s going to be really good and in small portions.”
Anupy Singla is a local free-lance writer.
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