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A Whole New Luther
R&B Powerhouse Powerless Over Food



June 25 — Though Luther Vandross is best known for his Grammy-winning R&B hits, he says his career is not his crowning achievement.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A Cruel Cycle Reaching His Target Weight


"I am more proud of my weight loss," says Vandross, who is also well known for his lifelong, public struggle with his weight. "I'm most proud of my health improvement."
Vandross — who has lost more than 100 pounds 13 other times — says he's finally figured out the secret to losing 100 pounds and keeping it off.

"I've never been more healthy than I am now," he says. "I wish I was this healthy when I was 25."

A Cruel Cycle

Vandross began his career as a backup singer in the '70s. One of his early jobs was singing on a David Bowie album. It was actually Bowie who encouraged Vandross to go solo.

Vandross' career took off in 1981 when his first album, Never Too Much, went platinum. Twelve more platinum albums followed, but though he enjoyed success after success in his professional life, he was beset by personal struggles with his weight — the cruel cycle of gaining and losing 100 pounds dominated his life.

"It's the most awful, dark feeling in the world," he says of the times when he put back on 100 pounds. "It feels like you're wearing an 80-pound hat and a coat that weighs 300 pounds … You feel like it's always dark and gloomy."

While many people struggle with significant weight fluctuations, Vandross' yo-yo relationship with food was displayed before millions of fans.

"It makes it very hard," he says. "You wear it externally so the minute you walk through the door, everybody knows 'Luther's not winning his battle with his demon.'"

In 1998, Vandross weighed 340 pounds. He also had high blood pressure and diabetes, a problem that has plagued his whole family. He calls his relationship with food an addiction: "The food had its clutches on me strong enough that it sort of demanded that I ignore reason."

Reaching His Target Weight

In his recent dieting success, Vandross says he has discovered the secret to weight loss. Using a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, he shed 120 pounds. "I deleted carbohydrates, I deleted starches … no bread, no rice, no pasta, no potatoes," he explains.

Breakfast, for example, is usually Egg Beaters or a turkey burger. "A turkey burger with the right seasonings, with sage and all of that stuff, really tastes like sausage," he says. And dinner, he says, consists of "vegetables, fish, chicken and fruit — that's it."

Asked if now that he's reached his target weight he can incorporate bread or pasta into his diet, he responds, "An alcoholic can't have half a martini, and you know, I can't have bread. This experience has taught me this."

Though Vandross has stayed trim for nearly three years now, it can still be a struggle for him to stick to his diet. Just weeks ago, he suffered food poisoning and decided to settle his stomach with some carbs. "I ordered a bagel that morning," he says. "Do you know that by the end of that day I had eaten five bagels … That's how much of a drug carbohydrate serves to be with me."


Storing the Carbs

Adele Puhn, a clinical nutritionist who was written extensively about high-protein diets, says of Vandross: "His body does not function the way it was meant to function. He's storing fat every time he's eating a healthy piece of bread."

Puhn believes there are many people like Vandross whose bodies do not process carbohydrates the way they should.

Other health experts and dietitians, however, believe such high-protein diets are unhealthy. Limiting the intake of carbohydrates to such a dramatically low level starves the body of needed nutrients and causes an artificial metabolic state, according to some nutritionists.

Along with his diet, Vandross is working out three or four times a week, often with his band members. Now, at 6 feet 3 inches and 220 pounds, Vandross has gone from a 52-inch waist to a 34.

"I feel like the best part of my life is about to happen," says Vandross, who has come out with a new CD after a three-year hiatus. "I can't have sugar and I can't have carbohydrates … but I can sing the mess out of a ballad."

Great story.

That's awesome.. it's just too bad they had to ruin it at the end with their uninformed editorial spin!

I always loved the fat Luther better than the skinny Luther. Go figger.

I just had to laugh. She might as well have said: He has emphysema; his lungs just can't handle it every time he smokes a healthy cigarette.

It's almost as if the writer of this article is afraid to get sued for promoting low-carb or something. It starts off with an absolutely great and very eloquent testimonial and they spoil it by parroting the words of some uninformed robots. Yeah sure. It's much healthier for him to weight 330 lbs than having his body starved for all the goodness contained in bagels and mashed potatoes.

Gee, poor Luther LOSES the weight...and they still blame his body for not "processing carbs right."

It's ludicrous.

I don't have the same problem I guess. I can have something carby one day and never get cravings for more. The quote that connected for me was this:



I know that feeling. I never knew how awful it was until I lost so much weight, to weigh what I did. It was (and is) like stepping into the sun.

Go Luther! He ain't the only one. I look forward to when Oprah has him on her show and he makes the public declaration about the evils of carbs.

Thanks,
B57

I'm afraid this post is way out of date. I think the article is from 2001.

In 2003 Luther suffered a serious stroke and was in a coma for a while. Last I heard he was still receiving therapy.

Anybody heard anything about him lately?

Luther has a brand new cd out called Dance with my Father. The title song was written by Richard Marks. Yes he did have a stoke last year.