Confessions of a Couch Potato by Stephen Furst
Stephen Furst is an actor who played “Flounder” in amazon“>Animal House, “Dr. Elliot Axelrod” in St. Elsewhere and “Vir” in Babylon 5. Never watched St. Elsewhere, but loved Animal House and Babylon 5 is one of my favorite shows EVAR! Vir was one of my favorite characters, too. So when, when season 4 started and Vir came back only half his former size, I wondered what happened. Nothing was ever explained on the show. Rumors on the net were that he’d gotten cancer or something, but to me he looked healthy, not like Rock Hudson on Dynasty who looked like death warmed over (which, in fact, he was).
What happened was that he’d lost 150 pounds [before] [after] after being hospitalized with the very real threat of losing a foot to neuropathy, one of the (many) complications of diabetes. But the book is less about diabetes than about his compulsive eating and what he did to combat it. I’ve never been a compulsive eater, so that was a bit hard to relate to, but I am a diabetic and so the book was quite interesting. The best part, I think, is that he’s not reluctant to say what he did wrong and the consequences it brought. For one example, he went on, basically, a fat free diet (as opposed to low fat). Your body needs some dietary fat to survive, and that resulted in an late night trip to the emergency room for an emergency gall bladder removal.
The book is full of anecdotes, humouros, sad, and infuriating, like, after being on his diet and being invited to a party at which there was nothing he could eat. However, the centerpieces were beautifully arranged green, yellow and red bell peppers, so he ate those. But fully half the book is a cookbook of recipies he developed. Many look quite good, but some have a few too many artificial things in them for my liking. (I would rather have no cheese at all than “no fat” cheese. I don’t know what that stuff is made of, but it’s not of this earth. Low fat? Fine. No fat? No way.)
He’s got a good sense of humor and it’s a good, quick read.
