The era of the crappy diet fads is over. Move over to the side, caveman, atkins and vegans, there is a new-and very convenient and delightful way of losing weight, the Pizza Diet.
After the rise and popularization of yummy diet plans this year such as the Taco Cleanse and the Sirt Diet (Where you eat dark chocolates and drink red wine to lose weight), Chef Pasquale Cozzolino claims that eating pizza everyday made him lose more than six stones or over 14 pounds!
Italian national Cozzolino says he weighed over 250 pounds when he arrived in the USA. Standing at 6ft 6in, he was clearly overweight and considered obese.
Homesick Cozzolino turned to multiple servings of comfort food whenever he would feel sad and alone. Eating was his way of adjusting with his new home.
"I'd eat 10 or 12 [Oreos]," the executive chef at the Ribalta pizzeria in the city's trendy East Village told the New York Post. "One time I even ate the whole box. It was like a drug for me," he adds, admitting to two or three fizzy drinks tins daily too.
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When he turned 34, he was weighed at his heaviest, 364 pounds, his waist size became trouser-busting at 48 inches. Of course he had developed health issues-his knees and back suffered in carrying his weight, he has three stomach ulcers and he narrated having struggles walking and taking his toddler son to the park. All the irresponsible good times he spent with food back-fired to his health in no time.
Last year in June, his doctor warned him, a heart attack is just waiting to happen. And that was his wake up call.
Using his BMI as guide, he developed and created a dietary plan that would restrict him at eating no more than 2700 calories per day. He halved portions, said no to sweets and carbonated drinks and started to love natural food and follow the Mediterranean Diet.
He religiously followed a strict diet and bid good bye to all delicious yet unhealthy food-except a whole margherita pizza, which he devours every day for lunch.
The pizza he eats is different from most commercially made ones, he makes sure that it was made of fresh dough made with water, flour, yeast and salt topped with tomato sauce, basil and a few hunks of mozzarella-which are of course, relatively healthy ingredients.
With a little kickboxing sessions and his unique diet, Cozolino is presently weighing 276 pounds and still striving to achieve his goal of weighing just 254 pounds.
To inspire other people who want to lose weight, he posts in his Facebook account some tips: "Don't listen to the man who gives you cans and magic powders... The fresh food is your medicine! Don't take the diet pills, the magic powders etc. Fresh food is the best medication for your diet and life!"