For Rev. Darryl Macdonald, the trigger was a loved one's illness. For Ted Bird, it was the sudden awareness that he wanted to stay healthy to watch his children grow up. And for Bruce Vineberg, it was the discomfort of having a lot more weight than his six-foot-tall body was designed to carry.
All three have achieved something many people try to do: lose weight. A lot of it.
And they did it in a way that weight-loss experts say is typically male. They didn't join groups to share their struggles and triumphs. And once they started to lose weight, they lost it fast.
The three are emblematic of a quirk of nature: Men and women lose weight differently. They also tend to see food differently, experts say.
"Men know almost nothing about nutrition," says Harvey Brooker, the Toronto author of It's Different For Men: The Men's Weight-Loss Strategy for Health, Wealth and Sexual Vitality. "And they often don't know why they're fat."
They often don't know that there might be 1,500 calories in a caesar salad, he says. "Moreover, they get into the habit of eating man-sized portions."
Nevertheless, men are becoming concerned about their body image, and are turning to weight-loss programs, some academic studies suggest.
Brooker, who has made a career of helping men lose weight since 1970, echoes other experts: Unlike women, they don't lose weight until there's a health risk.
That's what pushed Ted Bird, a morning-show co-host at Montreal's CHOM-FM, to start a weight loss regimen. He'd seen men his age die of weight-related illnesses. The catalyst that propels men into weight loss is often disease, sometimes accompanied by a doctor's ultimatum. Women, by contrast, are motivated by a constellation of factors that includes the cultural glorification of feminine thinness.
"Every women's magazine you see has something on its cover about the latest diet or workout," Brooker says. "Look at the magazines men read. They aren't getting those same messages."
At Weight Watchers, women will cite perhaps the desire to fit into an outfit for a special occasion, says Susan Yorke, the company's vice- president of marketing for Canada. But men don't seem to worry about their clothes, she says.
Lisa Talamini, chief nutritionist for the weight-loss program Jenny Craig, has seen the same thing. The sexes even differ in reasons for overeating, she says: Women often struggle with emotional eating, whereas men struggle with social eating.
The Mars and Venus differences are even evident in cravings. Men prefer more meat and potatoes; women prefer sweets, says Talamini.
And then there's the self-help model of weight loss, the tell-all meetings designed for sharing. Men hate them. And why not? They've been socialized to hide their feelings.
Vineberg sees weight loss as a personal issue, not a group issue, so he opted for private coaching. Weight Watchers does market to men, and tries to tailor meetings to them. The biggest hurdle is getting them to meetings, Yorke says. At first, they don't want to attend, but once they're there, they do participate.
Twelve years ago, Brooker established something in Toronto unique in the weight-loss field: men-only classes.
In the absence of women, the men open up.
"They talk about how their sex lives pick up after they lose weight. They talk about fibre, food labels and how to order meals in restaurants."
But one-on-one coaching is the preferred route for many men. Brooker coaches an average of 48 men a week and has logged 32,000 half-hour coaching sessions.
Once men decide to lose weight, they are often able to do it faster than women.
"A lot of men cut out drinking and they lose 10 or 15 pounds fairly fast," says Peter Forbes, a general practitioner who treats both sexes at Maigrir a la carte, a Montreal obesity clinic.
"For women, the process is slower because they're affected by female hormones, menstruation, pregnancy and menopause. A man can lose weight just by cutting down on eating, and he'll assume that women can do the same. It's actually more complicated for women."
He says when couples decide to lose weight together, the men are often surprised their wives don't lose weight as quickly as they do.
It took Vineberg, one of Forbes's patients, a mere eight months to shed 115 pounds.
But Vineberg wasn't surprised. "I just felt good because it was a new way of living," he says. "My weight had been up and down throughout my life. I had dieted, but would regain the weight. I also tried hypnosis, but it didn't work. At my heaviest, I weighed 300 pounds and was uncomfortable."
He began a protein-based regimen that eliminated potatoes, rice, pasta and bread. "The main trick is not to be on a diet, but to change the way you eat," Vineberg says.
He resumed cycling and then running, getting active the way he had been before he began raising his family 30 years ago.
"I remember I was walking somewhere one day during that period and I wanted to speed up. So I started running, and it felt really good," he says. Vineberg has kept his weight steady for the past two years.
Not all men do.
Eight years ago, Rev. Darryl Macdonald, minister of Roxboro United Church in suburban Montreal, shed 82 pounds in six months. He cut down on carbohydrate-rich foods and starting intense workouts at a fitness club.
As Macdonald approached his 40th birthday, he was 282 pounds, and he knew he had to do something. "I was motivated after seeing an illness in someone close to me, and it was then that I learned about the history of health problems in my family."
So, in 2001, he joined GoodLife Fitness Club and began working with a trainer and eating a low-carb diet.
He also trained to teach fitness classes at the club, which he now does four times a week. "But I don't think my mind changed along with my body," says Macdonald. "I was still thinking negatively about my body, and I didn't have an understanding of food. Once I lost the weight, I reintroduced carbs into my diet and I gained back40 pounds in three or four months."
But he had an epiphany when he added yoga to his workouts, "and became aware of my physical body as it existed in connection with my mind and spirit."
Macdonald has since lost 20 of the 40 pounds he regained, and is striving to lose the other 20. He's also educated himself about nutrition. "I'm in a weight-loss phase now, but it's gradual," he says. "It's all more conscious."
CHOM-FM's Ted Bird started a weight-loss regimen after he hit 237 pounds. "I gained a lot of weight after I quit smoking and drinking."
He'd given up regular exercise about a decade ago once he and his wife started their family.
A year ago, he followed the example of a colleague who had dropped 40 pounds in a program called Smart For Life, which features a diet of nutritional cookies that are meal replacements, along with a daily meal of lean protein and vegetables. Within five months, Bird had shed more than 30 pounds. Bird's reason for wanting to get slimmer is his health. "I'm 50, and I have a one-year-old child. If I want to see her turn 25, I have to take care of myself," he says. "I'm also seeing a lot of people my age drop dead. When you get to my age, there are no guarantees. I'm hedging my bets if I take care of myself."
