Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (6 page)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m in my mid-fifties and a stonking 350lbs. I’m addicted to food, often eating enough for three or four people. I’m out of breath, have no interest in sex, and can hardly even stand up. I’m using food like you used drugs—I’m killing myself. Any advice? Money is no object.

John, London

Number one, find a good dietician. Number two, start exercising (as long as your doc gives you the okay). But whatever you do, don’t go mental. For example: start at the lowest setting on the treadmill, then work your way up
slowly
, not the other way around. The mistake I made was thinking, “Well if I turn this thing up to warp factor ten, I’ll burn more calories”—but I wasn’t fit enough, my legs couldn’t keep up, and I almost catapulted myself backwards through a plate glass window. Another thing you have to do is find an activity you enjoy, ’cos if you don’t love it, you ain’t gonna do it. And I don’t mean take up darts, or table football. You’ve gotta break a sweat. I’m 175lbs at the moment, but I could easily be 350lbs if I didn’t burn off all the crap I eat with a bit of exercise. Fortunately, I’ve now become addicted to the blast of endorphins you get on a cross-trainer in the same way I used to be addicted to Special Brew. I’ve also got a massive telly in my gym at home, so while I’m getting rid of my extra chins I can watch World War II documentaries on the History Channel. That’s my idea of paradise, that is—a bit of cardio and some animated battle maps.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I recently went to Cuba, picked up a nasty bug, and was hospitalised with dehydration. The doctors shoved a steel lozenge thing down my throat to take a biopsy from my stomach, but it didn’t find the cause of the problem. Three months later, I’m still passing liquid. Please help…

Simon, Doncaster

Three months? If I was passing liquid for three
hours
I’d be straight down the gastroenterologist’s, begging him to make it stop. Chances are, it was some dodgy lettuce that did it. Let me tell you something: lettuce is fucking deadly if you eat it in the wrong country. I mean, yeah, you think it’s all nice and posh and healthy and whatever, but if you order a salad in parts of Mexico or South America, you might as well order a plate of raw human shit, ’cos that’s what’s in the water that it’s been washed in. I’ve suffered the same fate on more than a few occasions: you cross the border to Mexico, and within a few hours, you’re laid up in hospital, on a drip. But three months is no joke: it could even be more serious than you think. Best to get it checked out again.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I want to reduce the calories I eat, but how on earth do you go about counting them? I know that everything you buy in the supermarket has those little stickers on them now, but does anyone seriously measure out every single portion—and what about food you eat in restaurants, or that other people cook for you? How can you keep track of if all without basically dedicating your entire life to it?

Brian, Castle Bromwich

It’s a total waste of time, counting calories. For example, I looked at a packet of cereal the other, and it said on the side, “one bowl, 230 calories.” But how big’s the bowl? For all I know, it could be the size of an ashtray or a swimming pool. A better strategy is just to cut your portions down. Buy smaller plates, for a start. Seriously. Here in America, they give you enough food in one sandwich to feed the North Korean Army for a month. It’s only when you put it on a normal-sized plate that you realise what a pig you’re being. Exercise also makes a really big difference, even if it’s just a 20-minute walk every day. Do both of those things, and you’ll never have to count calories again.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

What’s the best way to treat a burned mouth? I love food, so there’s nothing worse than getting over-enthusiastic about a piping hot meal, only to destroy my taste buds for a week.

Sam, Warwick

I’ve done that with a hot french fry before, and it’s horrible. It’s even worse when you get it stuck halfway down your wind pipe, then everything else you eat for the next month tastes like sulphuric fucking acid. You’ve gotta
slow down
, man. In England, we eat food like it could jump up and do the 100-yard sprint at any second. Alternatively, you could eat all your meals at a restaurant with lazy waiters, so the food’s always lukewarm.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Why are people so worried about the mercury in tuna fish? I read the other day that Abraham Lincoln used to take mercury-laced pills to treat his constipation, and he was in good enough health to lead America (until he was shot, of course).

Percy, Cardiff

The only time I’d get worried about the mercury in tuna fish is if I ate a whole one. Otherwise, I can’t see how a bit of sushi every now and then is a problem. Having said that, a friend of my daughter’s recently got mercury poisoning, and it was heavy duty, man: she had memory loss, slurred speech, crazy mood swings, loss of co-ordination… basically, she ended up feeling how I did during most of the 1980s. As for good old Abe Lincoln, it’s never a very good idea to say, “Oh, so-and-so survived putting leeches on his eyeballs, so therefore it must be okay.” I mean, they used to add pure heroin to cough mixture. If they still did that today, I’d be off sick with a cold 365 days a year.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

People keep telling me how great yoga is—especially when it comes to stress—but I can’t stand the thought of all that chanting and hippy-dippy bullshit. Have you ever tried it?

Sam, Beaconsfield

You’ve got totally the wrong idea. Doing yoga ain’t like being a Buddhist monk. Or at least it doesn’t have to be. It’s basically stretching exercises—and you’d be amazed at the results you can get. I used to have this makeup artist, and she went on leave to have a baby, then I saw her a year later after doing a lot of yoga, and she looked amazing, all slim and tight and healthy. You’d
never
have believed she’d pushed one out just a few months before. I’ve actually just decided to do a course of Pilates for that very same reason. I’m not out of shape, but I want to avoid getting a big old gut on me. My only fear with these stretching-based things is that I won’t have the patience. Generally speaking, if I haven’t worked up a sweat in the first three seconds, I’m off. So we’ll see. In the meantime, why don’t you take a leaf out of my book, and at least
try
it.

DR. OZZY’S INSANE-BUT-TRUE-STORIES—

When Exercise Is Bad for You

Next time you’re in the gym, watch out for blokes with exploding balls—exercise balls, that is. One guy in Florida sued after the one he was leaning on (while holding two dumbbells) went pop, sending him crashing to the floor. He needed five surgeries, allegedly.

No-one knew you could get high from endorphins until a guy called Jim Fixx came along in the 1970s. He was basically a fat bloke who smoked two packs a day until he started jogging—then he lost his flab, quit tobacco, and turned himself into the world’s first ever fitness guru. Trouble was, he dropped dead at 52. While on a run.

Scientists reckon the chance of ending up like Fixx—ie, croaking it while exercising—is roughly one in 15,000 to 18,000 every year.
^*
People who work out the most have a higher risk than those who do it least. Being fat ain’t much of an alternative, though: obesity is a far more common preventable cause of death.

During the 1956 FA Cup Final, the goalie for Man City, Bert Trautmann, managed to break his neck after diving for the ball one too many times. There were still 17 minutes to go, though, so the crazy fucker kept on playing—even making a few more heroic saves that let Man City take home the cup. In fact, the guy didn’t even bother getting an X-ray until three days later, when he finally realised his head was about to fall off. He made a full recovery, and the last I heard, he’s still alive and well.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I keep hearing that humans need to drink eight glasses of water a day. This is surely bullshit, yes?

Billy, Leicester

I tried drinking eight classes of water a day for a while, and my bladder felt like a red-hot fucking cannon ball. I need to pee a lot as it is—but if I’m knocking back eight glasses of water, I might as well just live in the can, the amount of time I’ll end up spending in there. My advice is this: if you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, you’ll get some water from your food. On the top of that, drink as much as you need to stop being thirsty—which means if you lose water from exercise, you’ll be thirstier, and need to drink a bit more. That’s what animals do to survive when they’re in the wild. We ain’t any different.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve become addicted to counting calories: I have a sensor in my shoes that sends a “calorie burn readout” to my iPhone; I input everything I eat into a calorie counting website; and I try to estimate how many calories I burn up doing everything else (including typing this). I’m losing weight, but going insane. Advice?

William, Berkshire

I remember seeing an interview with Bob Dylan after he wrote his memoirs, and he said, “While you’re writing, you ain’t living.” The same goes for counting calories—which I’ve tried to do on many occasions. The bottom line is, every hour you spend jotting down every last cornflake or baked bean you ate during the day is an hour you could have spent with your family or friends. Either that, or you could be using the time to
learn
something, like a new language. I mean, okay, yeah, you’d still be fat. But at least you’d be fat and able to order your double-cheeseburgers in Slovakian.

Dear Dr. Ozzy: