mypetfat

What’s for Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know

IF there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama, too.

And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza while you watch the Democrats fight it out next week in Pennsylvania.

If what we eat says a lot about who we are, it also says something about how we might vote.

Although precincts and polls are being parsed, the political advisers to the presidential candidates are also looking closely at consumer behavior, including how people eat, as a way to scavenge for votes. The practice is called microtargeting, as much political discipline as buzzword. The idea is that in the brand-driven United States, what we buy and how we spend our free time is a good predictor of our politics.

Political strategists slice and dice the electorate into small segments, starting with traditional demographics like age and income, then mixing consumer information like whether you prefer casinos or cruises, hunting or cooking, a Prius or a pickup.

Once they find small groups of like-minded people, campaigns can efficiently send customized phone, e-mail or direct mail messages to potential supporters, avoiding inefficient one-size-fits-all mailings. Pockets of support that might have gone unnoticed can be ferreted out.

“This is essentially the way Williams-Sonoma knows which of its catalogs to send you,” said Christopher Mann of MSHC Partners, a political communications firm, which has used microtargeting to help dozens of successful candidates, including Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Although gender, religion and other basic personal data are much more valuable for pollsters, information about eating — along with travel and hobbies — are in the second tier of data used to predict how someone might vote, he said.

So, for example, Mr. Mann knows that someone who subscribes to lots of gourmet cooking magazines is more likely to be a Democrat or at least more open to progressive causes. That can help a campaign decide if it’s worth spending money courting that person’s vote.

Although Karl Rove was not the first to use microtargeting in a campaign, he brought it to new levels of sophistication and prominence, dividing swing voters into groups like “tax and terrorism moderates.” The strategy helped send George Bush back to the White House in 2004. Matthew Dowd, the former chief strategist for President Bush who is now a political commentator for ABC, helped orchestrate that effort. The Bush team studied food preferences, among dozens of other traits, as a shortcut to finding independents who might lean Republican, he said.

For example, Dr Pepper is a Republican soda. Pepsi-Cola and Sprite are Democratic. So are most clear liquors, like gin and vodka, along with white wine and Evian water. Republicans skew toward brown liquors like bourbon or scotch, red wine and Fiji water.

When it comes to fried chicken, he said, Democrats prefer Popeyes and Republicans Chick-fil-A.

“Anything organic or more Whole Foods-y skews more Democratic,” Mr. Dowd said.

But consumer information has to be studied in context.

“I don’t know how much you can use food or drink alone to determine how they will vote,” he said. “You can’t have a candidate with a Pepsi-Cola and Pizza Hut box and think that’s going to win an election for you.”

Jeff Navin, managing director of American Environics, a progressive research and strategy firm, agrees.

“Knowing that your base drinks gin doesn’t give you a clear idea on how to communicate with them effectively on issues,” he said. “But if you take it a level deeper and say, are there psychological drivers that will help understand the values behind the behavior, you can speak to those values and persuade voters.”

Mr. Navin offers an example from his firm’s ongoing survey that periodically asks 1,800 people in-depth questions about their lives. In last summer’s polling, the latest available, Mrs. Clinton scored high among voters who also had favorable views of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Starbucks.

That led his team to conclude that Clinton supporters put a high value on national brands. Although the landscape in the Democratic race has shifted since the poll was conducted, Mr. Navin said, back then the name Clinton was the most popular national Democratic brand.

Mark Penn, a microtargeting expert who was dismissed as chief strategist for the Clinton campaign last week, wrote a book on the subject: “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes” (Twelve, 2007).

Although Mr. Penn, who claims credit for coining the term “soccer mom,” didn’t specifically seek out research on the dining habits of voters, he does use food as a way to define the candidates.

Specifically, he points to Mr. Obama’s comments about the rising price of arugula at Whole Foods during a campaign stop in Iowa.

“He has more of the arugula vote,” he said in an e-mail message last week. “Senator Clinton’s voters are more likely to be making ends meet and so they do a lot more cooking at home and a lot less eating out at expensive restaurants.”

Although Mr. Obama’s team is also using consumer data to target voters, the campaign is focusing more on what one adviser called “macrotargeting.”

The idea is to build a unified, all-encompassing Obama brand that works well across all kinds of media platforms.

“I would say we’re old-fashioned in that you have to look at America as a whole,” said Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s national press secretary.

That’s not to say they don’t have specific information about voters, he said. And the campaign isn’t above using food to gain an edge. After the founders of Ben and Jerry’s endorsed Mr. Obama, the campaign blog quickly suggested a new ice cream flavor that plays off of a favorite campaign slogan: Yes, Pecan!

Whether a campaign uses a lot or a little consumer information, it can cause trouble if not interpreted correctly, some political veterans cautioned.

An environmentally minded independent who trends Democratic might buy organic milk, but so might an independent conservative who is more concerned about the health of her children than the state of the earth. They buy the same product, but for different reasons. Send an environmental message to the conservative and you could lose her vote.

That’s why some, notably James Carville, a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, see microtargeting as a waste of time and money.

Although he believes the cost of food is a fast-rising issue among voters, knowing what they eat doesn’t win elections.

“Suppose I found out people who drink cappuccinos are Democrats and black coffee drinkers are likely to vote Republican?” he asked. “So what? All kinds of other things are more predictive and less expensive to find out.”

Besides, the lines between who eats what continues to blur. Republicans are not necessarily red-meat-eating bourbon swillers, and not all Democrats are carrying their lattes to the farmers’ market.

Mr. Mann recently saw someone on a Metro train in Washington with a Bush/Cheney sticker on his bag reading “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” Barbara Kingsolver’s meditation on eating local food.

Some people who cook and serve food have been students of microtargeting for years. JoAnn Clevenger, the owner of the Upperline restaurant in New Orleans, doesn’t need a data set to identify how customers might vote. She just watches what they order.

“The Republicans are more formal and have more attention to structure when they eat,” she said. The classic example would be her delicate trout meunière.

Democrats tend to order earthy, down-home food with lots of juice for sopping, like Cane River country shrimp with garlic, bacon and mushrooms.

But lately she’s seen a lot of interest from both sides for her Oysters St. Claude. The oysters are coated with corn flour, gently fried and then slipped back into their shells and covered with an adventurous, Morrocan-style sauce seasoned with ground whole lemons, garlic, cayenne and paprika.

It’s the ultimate crossover dish, and she believes it’s popular this year because voters are being pulled in several directions.

“You have a respect and a yearning for the past,” she said, “but a feeling like you want something new and exciting that says let’s go all the way.”

SOURCE :
NY TIMES
KIM SEVERSON

What do the candidates weigh?

I had a reader ask me if I knew what the candidates weighed.

Not a clue.

And even after Googling the three of them I came up empty handed.

So if anyone can share a verifiable number for all three, or just one of them I'll send you a FREE mini mypetfat.

Rush Limbaugh "weighs in" on Mike Huckabee

It's Not Xmas If He's Not XL

WEIGH IN HERE

Healthy Arkansas web site

Here's the web site Governor Huckabee launched for his state. Lots of good information and resources in there for any "body".

HEALTHY ARKANSAS

Maybe There Was Something in The Water

He was born in Hope, has been governor of Arkansas for 10 years and is thinking about running for president.

So, yes, Mike Huckabee has much in common with Bill Clinton. He's also struggled to control his appetites over the years. And if he runs for president, these appetites, like Clinton's, will be a defining theme of his campaign, just as they will if he ever sits in the Oval Office.

Huckabee's problem appetites are for food. Clinton loved to eat, too, but not like Huckabee. Food is the prevailing demon of his life.

"I'm a foodaholic," Huckabee declares in the living room of the governor's mansion. He is doe-eyed, speaks quietly, sounds vulnerable -- Richard Simmons would hug him if he were here, God forbid.

Clarification: Huckabee, 50, is a "recovering foodaholic." The mirthful governor, a Southern Baptist preacher and conservative Republican, has lost 120 pounds in the past two years. He resisted corn dogs, drumsticks and other staples of the Southern-fried political buffet. At his peak he hauled about 300 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame -- "about," he says, because his scale went up to only 280. In one embarrassing episode, Huckabee sat down for a Cabinet meeting at the state capitol and demolished a 100-year-old chair.

He's been a fat guy for the bulk of his career in public office, starting when he was elected lieutenant governor in 1993 and continuing into the governor's office, which Huckabee inherited three years later after then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker resigned following his conviction in the Whitewater case. After failing at numerous diets, Huckabee broke through in 2003 when his doctor diagnosed him with Type 2 diabetes and said he'd be dead in 10 years if he didn't change his eating habits (prodigious) and exercise regimen (nonexistent).

While the country hardly lacks weight loss idols and fitness cheerleaders, none has attacked the issue so aggressively from a public policy standpoint. Nor has any other politician devoted such a hefty portion of his bully pulpit to the cause -- a pulpit that has grown exponentially since Huckabee became chairman of the National Governors Association in July (a post that Clinton also held) and one that would balloon even more if he runs for president.

"There is no greater issue driving the U.S. economy than this," Huckabee says, "this" being the scourge of obesity, junk food consumption and sedentary lifestyles. He preaches nutrition and fitness in the context of self-reliance and civic duty. Bad health maintenance takes a great societal toll, he says -- in rising medical and insurance costs and worker absences, among other things. He allows that this "epidemic" is not a sexy political issue.

But it is clearly a resonant personal issue for tens of millions of Americans -- and if anyone can bring it into the red-meat political arena, it's Huckabee.

It's also worth noting the states with the highest obesity rates tend to vote Republican. Whether this would predict support for Huckabee in GOP primaries is not known, but at the very least, "it's a very intriguing possibility," says Chuck Todd, editor of Hotline, speaking of a Huckabee presidential campaign.

"Think about what they put on the cover of Time and Newsweek when there's no big news story," Todd says. "Diets and Jesus. There is a huge audience for this. These could be Huckabee's constituencies."

Still, like the man himself, Huckabee's chances at becoming president appear slim. He has a small fundraising base, no foreign-policy credentials and little name recognition outside of Arkansas and "the anti-obesity community." But Huckabee's résumé goes well beyond novelty. He's been rated one of the top governors in the country by entities that rate these things (Governing magazine, most recently) and won praise for his handling of the flood of Katrina evacuees into Arkansas from the bordering Gulf Coast states. He is antiabortion, pro-gun and popular among the religious right in his state. He is also commended as pragmatic and non-ideological by Democratic governors he has worked with at the NGA.

But Huckabee's signature issue is fitness and weight control, and his evangelism on these matters never strays far from his own example. He is the subject of one of those striking before-and-after photo sequences you see with ex-fat people -- like Jared, the guy in the Subway ads.

The "before" shot shows the hefty, multi-chinned governor seated before the Arkansas flag. The "after" reveals a grinning man with actual cheekbones, slim and recovered -- or recovering. The photos appear on the cover of Huckabee's 2005 self-help memoir, "Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork: A 12- Stop Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle." Huckabee dedicates the book to his wife, the former Janet McCain (their first date was for cheeseburgers), his three children and "the millions of children and adults who, like me, struggle every day with the addiction of eating too much and exercising too little and who have tried to change and cried because they couldn't."

People come up to Huckabee in airports and after speeches. They share testimonials, tell him how much weight they've lost, or how much their best friend's cousin has lost, or how much they're now walking every day.

People approach Jared, too. But Jared isn't a three-term governor who was scheduled to give a speech in Iowa yesterday evening and traveled to the state three times in 2005 and New Hampshire once. Fat chance of Jared running for president, in other words.

Huckabee, meantime, is weighing his options.

A Passion for Health
"People ask me all the time, 'Are you running?' " Huckabee says, laughing. "I say, yeah, I'm running. About 25 to 30 miles a week."

That's his way of deflecting the question that he says is "ridiculous" to ask now but that he -- like all politicians subjected to this "ridiculous" question -- is clearly flattered to be answering (or not answering).

It's just after 6 a.m. in the governor's mansion, and Huckabee, clad in running shorts, is stretching on the floor of his sugar-free kitchen. This is where Arkansas' low-fat official dinners are prepared -- with Splenda, whole grains, minimal starch and nothing fried. One of his chefs has lost 60 pounds, Huckabee boasts, while another has shed 20.

The third-term governor is preparing to run four miles. He was up at 4, exchanging e-mail with a nutritionist pal from Cornell, doing 35 minutes on the stationary bike, reading newspapers, drinking two cups of coffee. He is joined by a reporter, a photographer and press secretary Alice Stewart, a former news anchor who, before joining Huckabee's staff, helped train him for last March's Little Rock marathon. (Time: 4:38:32.)

While stretching, Huckabee pinballs from topic to topic:

· It's hard to eat well on the road, he says, especially during campaigns. He travels with a small cooler of snacks -- fruit, veggies, nothing with processed sugar -- which frees him from the starchy, sugary cornerstones of so much stump fare.

· Like Clinton, Huckabee is a musician -- he plays bass guitar in a rock band called Capital Offense. He once played a gig with REO Speedwagon, Grand Funk Railroad and Willie Nelson.

· While Clinton famously said he didn't inhale marijuana, Huckabee says he's never tasted beer but smelled it once. "And it smelled horrible." And that was that.

At which point the governor gives his black Labrador, Jet, a kiss on the head. " Mmmm-wah."

And then he starts talking about high school students having heart attacks.

"You could see this in 10 years," he says. "Imagine it, 18-year-olds dropping dead in the classroom."

Now there's a real pick-me-up to start your morning.

Huckabee says that's where the nation is headed if the "obesity epidemic" continues apace. "It's not a pretty picture out there," he says, describing kids, nearly all of them overweight, who have developed Type 2 diabetes and are getting treatment at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "You never saw this 15 years ago," he says. He says it's a great bet that these kids will start having vision problems and heart attacks, renal failure and kidney dialysis by the time they're 40. And they will "never live to see 50."

The governor once faced an ominous date with 50 himself. But since his "transformation" in his late forties, Huckabee has touted nutrition and fitness with the zeal of a convert.

He launched the "Healthy Arkansas" initiative to promote better eating and exercise habits in one of the country's most obese populations. The initiative grants time off for state employees who stay healthy, not just those who get sick. It also allows workers to take a paid half-hour each day for exercise. "We give employees time to go out and hurt themselves during the day," he says of cigarette breaks. "Not only do we lose productivity but we increase the likelihood of their getting sick. But if you want to take care of yourself, we say do it on your own dime. Now what makes sense about that?"

Healthy Arkansas deals mostly in small-scale health incentives: State employees who undergo an assessment to measure their risky health behaviors are given monthly discounts of as much as $20 from their health insurance premiums. And any worker who wants one is given a pedometer to measure the steps taken in a day (the governor's office held a contest in which the person who takes the most steps in a month gets a parking space near the entrance -- which would seem to be an incentive for less walking).

In keeping with his basic conservatism, Huckabee couches his campaign in terms of personal responsibility, not government regulations.

Public health experts have urged Huckabee to go further -- to push for marketing restrictions on junk food, for instance. But while he's been reluctant to impose government mandates and standards, Huckabee is also praised for his openness to the views of nutritionists and public health advocates. "I think his policy approach to the obesity epidemic is a work in progress," says David Katz, an associate professor at Yale's School of Public Health who met Huckabee 1 1/2 years ago at a "summit on obesity" in Williamsburg.

As an example, Katz says Huckabee was originally against mandatory physical education requirements and curbing the sale of junk food in school vending machines -- believing that those decisions should be left to school districts. But he was eventually persuaded otherwise. "I accept that Mike has a political constituency to worry about," says Katz, who corresponds regularly with Huckabee. "If he alienates the food industry and his political base and he finds himself out of power, what good does it do us?

"If you're asking me if I think he's gone far enough, I would say no," Katz adds. "But I'm pleased that he keeps giving me the opportunity to tell him what I think."

Katz and others are quick to say that Huckabee's greatest contribution has been as a public advocate. Fighting fat is "clearly an issue he's become synonymous with nationally," says Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, a yo-yo dieter for much of his public life (he's now on a liquid diet). "The good thing about Huckabee is that he doesn't say, 'Bill, you ought to try this, or try that, here's my book,' " Richardson says. "He doesn't proselytize. I appreciate that."

"Clearly, the weight loss story is worth telling and hearing, especially for Southern males," says Mac McLarty, Clinton's former chief of staff, who knew Huckabee growing up in Hope. "Eating cheap food on a family budget is something familiar to a lot of people in this country. It's something that Huckabee has credibility on."

Huckabee often tells about his lower-middle-class upbringing as the son of a firefighter. His household followed a familiar economic model across America today: how to eat food with the highest caloric content for the lowest price. His family couldn't afford nice cars, nice clothes or vacations. "But we could always afford a second helping of mashed potatoes, with lots of gravy," he says. "That was the one way we could always indulge ourselves."

Huckabee will often wax nostalgic, almost romantic about food. The smell of fried chicken, homemade biscuits and gravy brings him back to a time of safety and pleasure and "the level of security I knew" as a child, he says.

For a Christian family, food was also an acceptable weakness, as opposed to vices such as drugs or alcohol. Indeed, people who know Huckabee are wont to describe his revamped body in terms of a religious imperative. "Mike will do what the Lord leads him to do," says John Benjamin, a longtime friend of Huckabee's and a member of his Baptist congregation during the 1980s.

"I consider this a matter of personal stewardship," adds Huckabee, a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. "My body does not belong to me. It belongs to the Lord."

As part of his better-health regimen, Huckabee underwent what he calls "nutritional counseling" through a program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The process was, as much as anything, a journey of self-discovery through the lens of what he named as his "food addiction."

Even so, he conveys no sense of victimhood. "McDonald's doesn't make people fat," Huckabee says. "Individuals overeating makes people fat." This is akin to the familiar slogan among gun control opponents who say that "guns don't kill, people do."

"Everyone in America loves to blame someone else for what they're responsible for," Huckabee says. He is obviously passionate but careful not to force-feed his message.

"I don't want to be the sugar sheriff or the grease police," Huckabee says. "I don't want to be in a position where I tell you what to eat. You want a doughnut, have a doughnut."

He's offering you a doughnut?

"Well, no," he says. "Not exactly."

The Running Governor
Huckabee says he's obliged to preach the good word for good eating, given his own experience, and his status as a sitting governor.

Or, a few minutes later, a running governor.

He gives Jet another smooch on the head ("Mmmm-wah") and is out the door.

Conversations while jogging can be especially fruitful. Camaraderie is built, endorphins released, defenses dropped.

And after a while, Huckabee is saying things that politicians probably shouldn't say. Like this:

"I keep hearing about these bands that have girls throwing their underwear onstage," he says, bemoaning that Capital Offense doesn't have any groupies. "But given our demographics, we're more likely to have old men throwing their Depends at us."

(Stewart, who is accompanying him on his run/interview -- befitting her dual credentials as both a press secretary and marathon trainer -- emphasizes that the governor is kidding about the Depends-throwing.)

Huckabee is presented with a hypothetical scenario: Let's say he is president and has a scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is running late and it might conflict with his designated exercise time. Does Huckabee postpone the run or the meeting?

"I wouldn't go to that place just yet," Huckabee says, "that place" being the White House. "Nice try, though."

Another scenario: Huckabee is confronting a triple conflict -- a Cabinet meeting, a 10-mile run and a jam session with the Rolling Stones, all scheduled for the same time. What does he do?

"I get up real early to do the run," Huckabee says. "Then I jam with the Stones. And then I spend the entire Cabinet meeting gloating about how I jammed with the Stones."

The run also yields these NutraSweetened morsels:

· Huckabee says he carries a cell phone during long runs in case state business intrudes, which it does occasionally. He used to run with pepper spray and almost used it once when a dog attacked him, biting through Huckabee's pants, though not his leggings underneath.

· He will occasionally splurge, like in Philadelphia recently. He stopped at Gino's, the famous cheesesteak place where John Kerry made the mistake of asking for Swiss cheese on his. Huckabee had not heard about this outrage.

"You're kidding me," Huckabee says. "He should have known better than that."

A few blocks later, Huckabee's run takes him to the Clinton library, on the banks of the Arkansas River. He strikes a stately pose in the dawn sunlight and -- symbolism alert -- is framed by the library on one side and golden arches on the other, looming across the river.

SOURCE
Fire in the Belly
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Dedicated to Fighting Obesity, Could Have a Meaty Opportunity Ahead
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Governor Huckabee Is A Happy Loser

Ok, not a new story but I was listening to Governor Huckabee this morning on Imus and an idea came to me to create a new category on this blog called "Political LB-IT News" to start to do a little research on where all of the candidates stand on all things "dieting, weight loss, exercise and wellness".

So to honor the fact that hearing Governor Huckabee inspired the idea, I thought it only fitting that I start my first post with his story written by Sally Squires for the Washington Post, Tuesday, August 10, 2004, about Governor Huckabee's 100LB weight loss success story

The Governor Is A Happy Loser
By Sally Squires

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is a successful loser.

In the past 18 months, he has whittled 110 pounds from his 5-foot-11 frame, going from 280 pounds (and a body mass index of 39 , which put him roundly in the ranks of the obese) to a trim 170 pounds and a healthy body mass index of 24.

These days, Huckabee finds himself talking as much about his healthy new habits as about his public policies. Earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson invited him to address the Steps to a Healthier U.S. Summit in Baltimore. In June, he was a keynote speaker at a Time/ABC News obesity summit in Williamsburg.

Huckabee, who is also writing a book for TimeWarner about his personal health successes, didn't plan on being an icon in the war against obesity. He simply wanted to get healthy after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2002. The condition, which afflicts an estimated 14 million Americans, is closely tied to being overweight or obese, and it significantly increases the risk of heart disease, kidney problems and eye ailments.

Huckabee's doctor handed him two oral medications and delivered a sobering message. "The doctor told me, the way you are living, your stress levels, the kind of job that you do and your health situation, you may have 10 years left, and that is being optimistic," Huckabee said. "Frankly, I was facing the fact that I was in the last decade of my life."

It was a turning point for Huckabee, then just 48, and one of the youngest governors in the nation. Huckabee, a Republican, has served in state office since 1993, when he won a special election for lieutenant governor. He became governor in 1996, when Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat, resigned.

Huckabee doesn't pretend to have all the answers to weight loss. He's quick to note that the path he took involved commitment and hard work. In his weightier days, he recalls being offended by "buff gym rats" preaching their messages about getting fit. So he is cautious about offering a blueprint for success. "I try not to go around saying, 'Well, you ought to do this because I did it,' " he said.

Even so, Huckabee -- he says he was a chronic overeater who hated to exercise -- sees in his story a few nuggets for others. "To be able to see my whole attitude change so radically gives me hope that other people can make adjustments and change, too," he said. "I am just one beggar telling other beggars where to find bread."

Here are some of the lessons he learned:

Find the big picture. "This is a process," Huckabee said. "There will never come a day where you can say, 'Wow! I can wipe my brow, call it quits and go back to my ways because I have done this thing.' That is critical to know. Everybody wants a quick fix and something that doesn't require any change or any effort."

Small goals. Worried that he wouldn't succeed, Huckabee set the bar low. "My original thought was, 'Gee, I need to lose 30 or 40 pounds,' " he said. "And I needed to lose more, but I didn't think that I could set myself up for a big failure. I just said if I could lose 40 pounds, I'd be in better health. I'd be better off. I just wanted to get healthier."

No dieting. Huckabee said he tried nearly every weight-loss plan. They all worked -- briefly. "I would have periods that I would call temporary success," he said. "What I really had to learn is that there is a difference between going on a diet and changing a lifestyle. Going on a diet is typically going to result in failure, for two reasons. First, because the person is focused on losing weight rather than getting healthy. And when the weight-loss program has been completed, a person feels that the process is over. Well, the process is not over. The process is a lifestyle, not a program. . . . This thing will not work on autopilot. You can't just sit in the front seat on the passenger side. You've got to be willing to drive."

Go slow. Huckabee's doctor first advised against any physical activity. The reason? His weight was likely to damage his knees. So Huckabee dropped a few pounds, then started walking. "My first exercise routine was probably six minutes a day," he said. Even that was an accomplishment. "Walking a city block just about had me winded," Huckabee said. He gradually worked up to walking a mile and a half a day. "Then one day, I was walking and I thought, 'This is kind of slow. Let's pick up the pace.' And I was running. It just developed, you know, it wasn't a planned thing. Every step became its own reward."

Find a daily routine. Always an early riser, Huckabee still gets up at 4:30 a.m. These days, however, he spends the time working out instead of just working. First stop is the track that circles the governor's mansion in Little Rock. Huckabee walks a mile, runs three, then walks half a mile to cool down. (In bad weather he uses a treadmill indoors.) Then he spends 30 minutes on a recumbent stationary bike while reading the daily newspapers. "I love the recumbent bike because you can do something else while you're on it," said Huckabee. "I can be very efficient."

Biggest Changes. No food or drink with highly processed sugar or white flour. "I have pretty much just eliminated it," he said. "And I find that not only do I not need it, but I don't want it." He consumes plenty of fruit and vegetables. "A year ago, I'd just as soon eat lawn clippings as eat asparagus, and now I love it. I find that my whole appetite has changed, and I can eat asparagus or some other type of fruit or vegetable and enjoy it so much." Other food staples include poultry without the skin, lean meat and the occasional steak and pork ribs. "I am certainly more careful about portions than I used to be," he said. And he's cut out salad dressing. "I'd never tasted a salad, I'd just tasted the dressing," he notes. "Now, if I do anything I'll put salsa on it, which is great."

Make the Time. "People say, 'How do you find the time to work out?' I say, 'There is no such thing as finding time, you make time.' For 48 years, I never found the time. But I have the same 168 hours in the week that everyone else does. And I have as busy a life . . . virtually as busy as anyone. So, do I have time to do it? Not if I find it, but I do if I make it."

Be a Road Warrior. When he travels, Huckabee packs a small cooler with smoked turkey, strawberries, apples, bottled water and diet soda so he won't be tempted by higher-calorie foods. "It's easier for me to say, 'No' than 'not much,' " he said.

Know Your Weakest Time. "The biggest battle for me is late at night," Huckabee said. "Everyone else has gone to bed and I am catching up on the end of the day's work and [eating] is kind of a stress reliever. I don't drink alcohol, but I can always eat. Nobody minds. What I find is that I just have to be very careful. An apple is better than a bag of chips. I think the amazing thing is [my] changing appetite. . . . I actually crave the apple more than I do a candy bar. And that is something that I thought I would never experience."

Weight Loss Is an Effect, Not a Goal. Gradually but steadily, Huckabee's habits improved. When he'd lost 70 pounds, he stopped trying to lose weight. The remaining 35 pounds of loss just happened as his healthy habits continued.

Exercise Cravings. "If for some reason I don't exercise, I feel absolutely robbed," he said. "It is like I didn't get to eat that day. That's just incredible. The thing about that is that it's almost like I don't recognize myself saying that."

Life-changing benefit. At his last annual physical, tests showed that Huckabee's diabetes has been reversed. Blood levels of hemoglobin A1C, a substance used to monitor the health status of people with diabetes, are now in the healthy range. Huckabee hasn't taken any medication to lower his blood sugar for more than a year. "The doctor said, 'You are now as if you never had diabetes. You will have no long-term effects.' Now I am entering the first half of the rest of my adult life, as opposed to looking at the last 10 years of it winding down."•

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