Doctor says simple diet helped him shed pounds
Marlboro resident had moment of clarity at uncle's funeral
BY REBECCA MORTON Staff Writer

Howard Dinowitz

MARLBORO - Forget the surgical procedures and weight-loss programs you may see being advertised on television; one Marlboro resident lost 218 pounds in 13 months using a simple Board of Health plan he discovered.

Howard Dinowitz, 50, a podiatrist who has been aMarlboro resident for 16 years, was at an uncle's funeral in November 2006 when he had his "aha" moment. Seated in a chapel pew in Manhattan among his family, Dinowitz was asked to come forward and say a few words about his uncle.

"I realized my knees were stuck to the front, I was somehow latched onto the side. I tried to wriggle myself out and the pew cracked. So at that point about 200 people are looking at me and I said, 'Uhoh, this is not good,' " Dinowitz recalled.

As soon as the attention was drawn away from him, Dinowitz told his wife, Bonnie, that it was time to start a diet.

Dinowitz said he was always a chubby child who was enamored with food. Food equaled happiness in his mind since many happy occasions, such as holidays, were spent at the table with family.

"You start to realize that if you want to be happy, eat," he said.

Dinowitz said he grew up in a loving family, but there was not much importance placed on proper nutrition or exercise. As the years went on, the habits stuck and Dinowitz weighed almost 250 pounds at the age of 16.

By the time he turned 18, Dinowitz decided it was time to lose weight and ventured down a path filled with different types of diets, eventually ending up on a near-starvation diet. The result was a loss of 100 pounds.

During what he calls the lean period, Dinowitz said he met and fell in love with the girl of his dreams, Bonnie. As the years went on so did the pounds, eventually reaching 388 pounds.

"It's not that I put on all this weight all of a sudden, I put on 5 to 6 pounds a year. After 10 years that's about 60 pounds and the weight starts to go on faster," Dinowitz explained.

At different times, Dinowitz tried various popular weight-loss solutions, but nothing ever seemed to work. The ill effects of obesity were soon evident in his everyday life. Dinowitz recalled that even shopping with his wife and children, Andrea, Daniel and Justin, would be too exhausting. His cholesterol and blood pressure were high, and Dinowitz believes he was pre-diabetic.

As it turned out, Dinowitz had come across an old Board of Health diet at a health fair. Looking at it, he knew the diet would be easy, but prior to the funeral incident, he was not motivated to try it. Eventually he lost the booklet, but Dinowitz said he never forgot the three simple steps in the plan.

First, a person figures out his height in inches, which in Dinowitz's case is 70 inches. Men should then take their height in inches and add 100 to it, resulting in their ideal weight, he explained. Women must add 80 to their height in inches. Dinowitz worked his ideal weight out to be 170 pounds.

The next step in the diet is to determine what would be the permitted daily calorie intake. Dinowitz said this step requires multiplying the goal weight by 10. In his case, Dinowitz's daily calorie intake should be 1,700.

The last step is determining the total number of grams of fat and sugar a person can have each day. The way to determine this is to divide the goal weight by 10, meaning Dinowitz's daily amount is 17. That number represents the total intake of grams of fat and sugar for the day.

Fat and sugar information can be found on the nutrition information panel of products. Dinowitz said that strictly adhering to these numbers will eliminate the obvious "no good foods" such as pastries, fried food, red meat and processed white flour products. Dinowitz said his credo for the diet is low fat, high fiber and a balance of calories.

The calorie intake may seem small, but Dinowitz said it is filling if a person eats the right things.He explained that the body adjusts rapidly because the glycemic index beings to normalize.

The glycemic index is the relationship between the insulin and sugar in the body, Dinowitz described. He explained that eating more sugary items, not just candy, but also starchy products, which are broken down into sugars, causes a need for more insulin in the body. Dinowitz described insulin as a hunger hormone, meaning that the more insulin that is in the body combating the sugar, the hungrier a person will be.

"I think the trick is if you break out of bad habits and start some good habits, it's like everything else, good habits stick. And it's easy," Dinowitz said.

The weight began to come off and 13 months later Dinowitz was down to his target weight of 170 pounds. He said people ask him when he had surgery to lose the weight and he tells them he did it without surgery.

One of Dinowitz's patients eventually put him in touch with NBC-TV's "Today" show and he became a member of the show's "Joy Fit Club" with nutritionist Joy Bauer. The "Joy Fit Club" is a segment featuring people who have lost and kept off 100 pounds or more through diet and exercise, according to its Internet Web site. On Feb. 18, Dinowitz and his family appeared on "Today" to discuss the success of his diet.

Prior to going on the diet, Dinowitz said, his daily breakfast consisted of a bagel with cream cheese, or a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, plus coffee. Lunch would consist of a hero sandwich or some other fast-food option. He ate snacks during the day. With medical offices in Brooklyn and Staten Island, N.Y., Dinowitz said he would stop on his drive home for a fast food fix.

The podiatrist said when people hear what he was eating, they do not see anything abnormal about the consumption. It is the act of eating these items on a daily basis that will eventually catch up with a person, he said.

Now his breakfast consists of high fiber cereal with fruit or egg whites and low-fat salsa. For lunch and dinner Dinowitz will dine on vegetable soufflés, garden burgers or salads. If he feels a hunger pang between meals, he will opt for some fruit or a sugarfree ice pop instead of candy or potato chips.

Since dropping all of the weight, Dinowitz said he has seen his energy level rise and his blood work is now at normal and healthy levels. Although he still follows his daily calorie intake, Dinowitz said his weight loss has stopped since he hit his target number.

"Your body just knows," he said.

Dinowitz said people who have questions about the diet he followedmay call his New York office at 718-627-1212.

"I am a no-frills person and I am an average, everyday guy. If I can do it, anyone can do it. It's just a matter of giving up bad habits, starting good habits and sticking with them," he said.