If you’re one of the two-thirds of Canadians who have tried to lose weight, chances are you’ve come across the work of Harley Pasternak. Toronto-born Pasternak is basically a one-man health industry. He’s a personal trainer, a fitness writer and has his own line of running shoes, fitness-focused video games and snack bars. And when celebs want someone to bust their gut, Pasternak is often the guy they call.
And yet, his health plans are simple enough for anyone to follow. Pasternak has just released a new weight-loss book, The Body Reset Diet, and the good news for anyone looking to shed a few pounds is that he wants you to quit the gym and drink smoothies all day.
Pasternak’s 15-day program calls for followers to replace all their meals for one week with smoothies selected from a list of Pasternak-approved recipes. A crunchy snack or two each day is allowed — presumably so you don’t forget how to chew. Gradually, healthy solid meals are reintroduced over the course of about 10 days.
Pasternak claims his plan has “transformed much of Hollywood,” and he liberally fires off names of his celebrity clients, including Kim Kardashian, Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, to prove it. Not that you’d think FHM’s and Maxim’s darling Megan Fox would ever need to, but Pasternak says women can shed up to eight pounds with his simple 15-day plan.
He also calls for you to ditch your gym pass, well, temporarily at least, claiming that overdoing it with the exercise is one of the most common blunders made by people trying to lose weight. “I don’t want you to increase your appetite,” he says, “and that’s what a lot of people do when they overexercise, when they go to spin classes and boot camps.” Instead, the fitness guru says you should invest in some running shoes and either buy a pedometer or get really, really good at counting, because he thinks you should be doing at least 10,000 steps a day. (That’s about 7.5 kilometres or 550 round trips from the sofa to the fridge, depending on your preferred unit of measurement.)
According to Pasternak, walking and doing some quick fitness circuits burns calories without making you so starving you’re tempted to add a hamburger chaser to your smoothie.
“Don’t worry about kicking your butt. You don’t have to climb mountains, you don’t have to be crazy,” says Pasternak. “Just move and focus on getting the steps you need to get done in the day. Incorporate movement into your daily routine.”
Pasternak speaks about fitness with a seriousness that sits slightly at odds with the slew of celeb names with which he peppers his sentences. (John Mayer performed at his wedding, and Kanye West flew from London for the event.) Perhaps that’s a hold-over from his days in the Department of National Defence, where he worked on nutrition for the military.
Despite having a roster of clients that looks like the invite list to the Oscars, Pasternak says he sort of fell into personal training. Though he loved playing hockey as a kid growing up in York Mills, Pasternak’s first aim in life was to be a doctor. But since he wasn’t too fond of blood and gore, he segued into nutritional science instead. He studied at U of T and York, among others, and started a personal training business in his spare time while working for the government.
Pasternak first started to rub well-toned shoulders with celebs while doing personal training for film studios in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. He set up a mobile gym in an 18-wheel truck that could be parked at film locations for actors to work up a sweat between takes.
His move to L.A. happened 11 years ago, after working with Halle Berry while she was filming Gothika in Montreal. “She asked me to come to L.A. with her to get her ready for Catwoman,” he says, “and at that point, Milla Jovovich asked me to help her get ready for Resident Evil, and then Orlando Bloom for his film, and it grew and grew from there.”
Pasternak says he has been using his smoothie diet plan with his celeb clients for a long time, as they often have to get in shape fast for a role or a tour. But, other than the trail of paparazzi snapping pics of their sweat stains, celebs are pretty much the same as regular joes, Pasternak says, when it comes to working out.
“The only difference is the type of motivation,” he says. “You’re the one who has to not eat that bad food. You’re the one who has to burn those calories. But being in the public eye, [celebrities] have more motivation because they’re scrutinized every moment of the day.”
And to prove their non-diva status, Pasternak makes celebs come to him — he doesn’t do house calls. “I find that, if you’re going to someone who’s rich and famous and powerful and you’re going to their home on their schedule and their environment, you’re in their world. I say, if you want to work with me, you have to come to my studio. If they say yes to that, then I know this person is really dedicated, this person really does want to succeed.”
He adds, “Everyone’s the same in my eyes. There’s no celebrity, no fame, no wealth in that world.”
Harley’s tips for getting to 10K
OK, so it’s like minus 15 out there and you have to mountaineer over a mound of ice just to get to your car. But there are still ways to rack up your 10,000 steps. Pasternak says the best way to hit 10K a day is to make walking part of your everyday life. “Walk to get to a functional destination,” he says. “Take stairs instead of elevators. Skip the drive-through Timmy’s and walk to your nearest coffee shop instead, or arrange lunch meetings within walking distance.”
Because pedometers are blind to your destination, shopping trips count, too. So an afternoon spent flitting between stores on Yonge Street or in Yorkville can now be guiltlessly redefined as “hitting the gym.” (Carrying those heavy shopping bags is sure to tone your arms as well, right?)
And, once winter’s done and you peel off the Canada Goose jacket you’ve been living in for the last four months, you can follow your feet pretty much anywhere in the GTA.
“There are walks all around Toronto. It’s littered with incredible walks,” says Pasternak. He recommends the Beltline and Harbourfront as good places to start. Or, you know, there’s always Yorkdale Mall and Bayview Village until the frost melts.…