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Published: April 28, 2007 06:45 pm
Cycling for a Cause
Seth Margolies takes his weight-loss story across the nation
By Jeff WalkerFeatures Editor
Seth Margolies wasn’t given a lot of options. The overweight New Jersey-native actor was given the same two choices from a series of doctors: Change your lifestyle, or don’t live past your 40th birthday.
What’s happened from there has been a heck of a ride. And one ride across America, in particular.
Margolies, now 42 and 200 pounds lighter, stopped by San Marcos this week, a little over halfway through his bicycle ride from La Joya, Calif. to St. Augustine, Fla. He’s riding 3,000 miles to spread the message of healthy living and regular exercise.
In the past four weeks, Margolies has passed through mountain ranges, two deserts, the wind, the cold and even across “the vast wasteland of West Texas.” In each town he stops, he’s a symbol of hope for anyone who wants to lose weight. He’s living proof that with enough self will, anything is possible.
“If I can show you that I can take two months out of a busy life to ride a bicycle across the country, you can dedicate 30 minutes a day to a more healthy lifestyle,” Margolies said.
In 2003, Margolies weighed 406 pounds. He was isolated, depressed, unmotivated and unproductive. He’d break into sweats just reaching down to tie his shoes. When he walked down the aisles of the grocery store — whether it was true or not — every time he bought something, he’d think people were looking at what he had in his cart.
“Ordinary activities just became ten fold to manage. If it should be easy, it became difficult,” Margolies said. “You don’t want to go to the gym because you’re afraid people will make fun of you. So it becomes a vicious cycle, so you sit at home and order take-out and eat Ben and Jerry’s and watch TV. And life becomes kind of sad.”
He looked at all kinds of dieting. He tried Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.
“If they told me to eat rice and grapefruit, I would do it,” Margolies said.
Nothing seemed to work.
He was suffering from sleep apnea, high blood pressure and his cholesterol was at 260. So later that year, Seth made plans to have laparoscopic bariatric surgery to shrink his stomach.
But not without saying one last good-bye to the food he loved, embarking on what he called the continental meal.
His wife was working on a Broadway show tour, and called him from Philadelphia. He was in San Francisco.
“She says ‘I want you to come pick me up.’ I said, ‘you want me to drive all the way from San Francisco to Philadelphia to pick you up?’” Margolies said.
“She said ‘Springsteen’s on tour. I can get you some good seats.’”
“I said, ‘Okay, I’m there.’”
Growing up in Jersey, Margolies adored Springsteen, with “Darkness on the Edge of Town” being one of his youth anthems. So he followed The Boss’s tour all the way to Philadelphia. In every town he stopped, he enjoyed their delicacy of choice.
“I thought since I’m about to have the surgery, this will be a good opportunity to start saying good-bye to all the foods I love. I went to Nebraska and had steak, went to Chicago and had deep-dish pizza. I basically started a food tour of America. Which is totally the wrong thing to do, but OK. I thought I’d never be able to eat again.”
Ironically, Margolies had the surgery on Sept. 23, 2003, Springsteen’s 54th birthday.
Coming out of the surgery, the first question Margolies had for his doctor was “when can I hit the gym?”
“He said you can be in the gym in less than seven days,” Margolies said.
So that’s what he did. Margolies began getting up at 5 a.m. every morning, at first doing 15 minutes or so of cardio-exercise. Then he got up to 30 minutes, and eventually two hours. He put away the greasy food and monitored every meal closely. In three months, Margolies had lost over 100 pounds.
“There were times I’d look in a mirror and think it was another person,” Margolies said.
He did his first bike ride within six months of the surgery, and his first marathon a year later. Margolies’ life had completely transformed, in more ways than one.
“It’s really interesting to one day be heavy and the next be thin,” Margolies said. “Just to see how people react to you differently. People now ask for my opinion on things. My intellect is no different than what it was before. But, if I talk to someone who is morbidly obese, I have those tools in my belt. I know what they’re feeling and what they are going through.”
Which is much of the reasoning behind Margolies’ bike trek across America. What began as a joke among he and his friends became a reality when he picked up two sponsors for the ride.
“I sort of panicked in the weeks leading up to the ride. You know, I’m telling myself ‘you’ve only ridden three hours a day, how are you going to do this for eight or nine hours a day for several weeks?’” Margolies said.
Beginning in the mountains of La Joya, Calif., Margolies traveled through Phoenix and Tempe, Ariz. and into New Mexico. From there he went into El Paso, and followed I-10 to San Antonio for 477 miles. He’ll continue through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and down into Florida.
But he says visiting hospitals and speaking at community events along the way has made it all worth it. He’s had people come up and tell him “you’ve inspired me to join a gym,” or “I bought workout equipment because of you.” Margolies also wants to reach out to the bariatric community.
“I want them to know that if you want a better quality of life, it’s you who’s going to make it happen,” Margolies said. “You can’t expect miracles from a diet pill or Jenny Craig or a surgery. You have to put the work in. All it takes is will and motivation. I hope to motivate people to want to better themselves.”
Margolies, as well as anyone, knows that inspiration can come from all sorts of places.
He recently saw Springsteen entering a show at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Amid a crowd of fans, Margolies yelled at the singer as he walked by.
“Hey Bruce, your song ‘Better Days’ helped inspire me to lose 200 pounds,” Margolies said.
Bruce looked back at him.
“Really? You look good. You look really good.”
Needless to say, coming from the Boss himself, Margolies didn’t take that compliment lightly.
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