Interview with Richard Morris

before                                        after

Richard Morris wrote a book called A Life Unburdened describing how he lost over 150 pounds and became healthy. I recently had the chance to interview him about his experiences. You can read more about him at his blog Bread and Money.

CB: Richard, could you begin by describing what your condition was before your transformation and what you are like now both in terms of physical and mental well being.

RM: About five and a half years ago, I weighed over 400 pounds. I suffered from hypertension, sleep apnea, chronic fatigue, and a host of other obesity-related issues. Standing for more than five minutes was painful. Walking was torture and running, well, running and any other exercise was completely impossible for me to do. My mental state was no better. I had headaches all the time and found that I couldn’t focus on my work or anything else. I existed in a perpetual mental fog, and worse, I had a pessimistic outlook on life. Today, all that has changed. I’ve lost over 150 pounds. The health issues I suffered from have all disappeared. I work out now in the gym and on the road. I’m stronger and healthier than I’ve been in a long time. Mentally, I’m sharper than ever and most important for me is that I’ve replaced my once perpetual pessimism with a driving optimism that makes me excited to take on each new day.

CB: What were your major sources of information for changing your life and body and how did you find out about them? How long did it take for you to begin seeing results from your changing diet and lifestyle?

RM: Initially, I just had a vague idea that processed food was the problem, so I started eating mostly whole foods. I spent a lot of time reading articles on the web about the benefits of whole foods. I also started learning about what was wrong with conventional processed food. Typically one article or book would reference another article or book which pulled me deeper into the rabbit hole and exposing the ‘wonderland’ of industrially processed food. A few months after I started, I stumbled across the Weston A. Price Foundation web site. This site turned out to be one of my biggest information sources. I also read a number of books: Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, Food Politics by Marion Nestle, and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston Price. They were all very helpful. Two weeks after I started eating whole foods, I noticed that I felt better physically and mentally. It took about two months before I noticed any significant weight loss, but because I felt so much better mentally and physically, it didn’t seem like such a long time.

CB: I have also noticed significant changes to my mental well being as well probably larger than the changes to my physical body since following the principles advocated by Weston Price. I think I might follow a Nourishing Traditions diet for that reason even if it did not have the additional health benefits. What are you recommendations to an overweight person today? Many of the principals advocated by the Weston Price Foundation fly directly in the face of what someone might hear from their doctor or read in a health magazine. How would you address someone’s concerns about this?

RM: I always tell people what worked best for me. First, I educated myself. There are so many great resources on the web and at the public library that provide a more complete picture about the connection between our modern diet and our inability to manage our weight. Next, I replaced much of the processed food in my diet with home cooked whole foods made from whole ingredients like full-fat dairy, fresh produce, pastured meats, fermented foods (like kefir and sauerkraut) and sprouted whole grains. Some of the things I did, like eating butter, eggs, and whole meats with all the fat, run contrary to conventional nutritional advice. I tell people that as a nation, we haven’t done so well following the conventional paradigm and that maybe we ought to consider something different, like eating the way our grandparents ate. That is, adding good quality fat to the diet, while reducing the consumption of sugar (in all it’s forms), refined vegetable oils, and over-processed grains. I found that you can’t convince someone, in a five minute conversation, to throw everything they knew about nutrition out the window, but what you can do is tell them how eating good food helped you. That’s usually enough to get them to question their own beliefs about food and start looking for answers.

CB: You had mentioned that you workout in the gym and on the road. What type of workouts do you do? What principles for exercise do you follow?

RM: My guiding principle toward exercise is that it should be simple and that you shouldn’t need an advanced degree in Physical Education to do it right. I have a home gym stocked with basic equipment including free weights, a bike and a treadmill. Some days I’ll work out on the bike and treadmill. On other days, I’ll do resistance training which includes weight training, but also bodyweight exercises like push-ups and squats. I’m not fanatical about it and I’m lucky if I get in three days a week. The kind of workout I really prefer is the kind where I’m actually doing real work, like digging a new bed for my garden or farm related work where I’m lifting, twisting, pushing, and pulling all day long. Sometimes, I just go for a long leisurely walk. For me, variety in the frequency and type of exercise I get is very important. It keeps me from getting bored. When I’m traveling, there’s nothing like push ups in the morning to get me started.

CB: You wrote a book, A Life Unburdened, describing how you turned your life around and became healthy as well as some of your principles for healthy living. What made you decide to write a book? Could you talk a little about the book and its purpose?

RM: After I lost weight, lots of people wanted to know how. People kept telling me that I needed to write a book, so I did. The title was inspired by one of my exercise sessions where I had gone for a long walk — ten or twelve miles, I think — wearing a 40 pound weight vest. Boy was I tired when I returned home. First thing I did was take off the vest. Suddenly I felt light as a feather and the first word that popped into my head was ‘unburdened’. I suddenly realized that before I lost weight, I had been carrying around more than 150 extra pounds, and while the effect of losing the weight was less pronounced than when I took off the vest, I knew that losing weight had unburdened me of a life filled with sickness and despair. The book tells my story. It talks about the food I ate, the things I learned, and the methods I used to lose the weight and keep it off. My hope was, and still is, that it inspires others and helps them to realize that they don’t have to starve themselves on a low-fat diet or suffer the risks and expense of weight-loss surgery.

CB: If you were to sum up your philosophy in one sentence, what would it be? Also, are there any final thoughts that you would like to leave with the readers.

RM: Learning how to eat better has to start with self directed education, because acquiring the truth for yourself always trumps following someone else’s advice. Thus, the best summation of my philosophy is this: Read, think, learn, and eat. My final thought is this: Make good food a priority in your life. All it takes is a little commitment, a little practice, and a little time. And thank you Ben for this interview. I enjoyed speaking with you.