It’s a who’s-who of lifestyle experts, including Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Ty Pennington and celebrity personal trainer Harley Pasternak, joining forces to change people’s lives in every aspect from their home life, to their health, to their relationships. The Revolution premiered on Citytv in January, and CityLine.ca recently had the chance to sit down with Pasternak to talk about the program and its dramatic, whole-life-change approach.
CityLine.ca: Tell us about the concept of The Revolution and your part in it.
Harley Pasternak: “We take women through a five-month transformation, and you get to see it in five days as a viewer (one woman a week). Each day of the week, one month of her transformation has gone by, and it’s a 360-degree revolution, where I’m not just showing them how to lose weight and how to cook and eat better and move better, but Tim Gunn is going to show them how to dress for their new bodies, and Ty Pennington will help transform their home. Dr. Jen and Dr. Tiff will work with their health, mental and physical. It’s an amazing opportunity to be real in a world where weight loss on TV is very sensationalized and over-dramatized and there’s no take-home. When you watch a woman being taken away from the responsibilities of her daily life (her job, her home, her family), put onto a fat farm somewhere and told to exercise for hours and hours a day, what do you get from that? That’s the main difference from any other weight loss show – it isn’t a weight loss show, it’s really a life show.”
CL: What can you tell us about the people featured on the show?
HP: “A lot of them have some pretty serious stories. One woman was in a plane crash – 200 people died in the Andes Mountains, including her parents sitting on either side of her, and she survived. So now we’re helping her not to survive but to thrive. We had a woman who lost her three daughters in a fire, and she tried to eat herself to death. She put on about 200 pounds – so again, getting her not to survive but to thrive, and transform her life in every way. And there are uplifting stories – there was a show with a law enforcement official. She had gained weight and they’d taken her off her job because she wasn’t able to fulfill the obstacle course that you need to be able to do. She couldn’t get over this one wall. But she dropped 60 pounds, and she got over the wall and she’s back in the field doing what she loves, and she’s feeling sexy again. It’s a great story.”
CL: So many of us struggle with weight loss, whether it’s 10 pounds we need to lose, or 60. What’s your advice to those who are struggling?
HP: “Do one thing differently. Replace your 2% milk with 1% milk. Replace your flavoured yogurt with plain yogurt. Instead of taking the elevator in the building like everyone does, for one day try to take the stairs. That one thing, with some consistency, will make a change in your body. A change in your body will make you feel good about that one change, and you’ll be ready for a second change. It’s about making these small changes gradually over time that, combined, make huge changes in the way you look and the way you feel.”
CL: Is the problem in the way we approach weight loss? We see it as a huge, overwhelming thing?
HP: “It’s extremes. We live in such an extreme world right now, where we forget about moderation and sustainability. It’s not sexy, it’s not interesting, it doesn’t make for good TV, it doesn’t make for great ads. It’s like overnight you should snap and all of a sudden be the person wearing organic cotton and blending all your meals and having alfalfa sprouts and sleeping on a hemp bed. It’s not necessary. Start with one thing.”
CL: What brought you to fitness — was it always something you were passionate about?
HP: “It always was. My mom was always into working out and eating healthy. Both my brothers have Type 1 diabetes, so growing up in a household that was conscious of diet and wellness was important to me. At a young age I was a hockey player, and started working out for hockey, and was fascinated that, ‘Wow, by lifting this a bunch of times, my arms look different.’ Eventually I started bodybuilding. My mom used to call me ‘No Neck.’ That evolved into the desire to know what I was actually doing to my body.”
CL: You came up with the 5-Factor Diet – what are the principles behind it, and why does it work?
HP: “Every diet works. Every single diet works, but they only work for a short period of time, and then all diets fail. The question is, how do you create a way of eating and a way of living where you continue to see results and the results stay? First of all you have to enjoy it, and diets generally aren’t enjoyable. Whether it be Atkins, The Zone, Pritikin, the Lemon Drop Diet, the cabbage soup diet – they all work but it’s not about losing 10 pounds this week and putting on 11 pounds next month. It’s, ‘How do I continue to look and feel better every week for the rest of my life?’ The 5-Factor addresses that and it does it asking you to give up the least amount of time, the least amount of equipment. [For more on Harley’s 5-Factor diet, click here.]”
CL: It must be so satisfying to see clients making progress and reaching their goals.
HP: “I can’t even tell you. For my whole life I’ve been working with celebrities, which is an amazing life. But now I’m getting people to actually change their lives, we’re helping people with diabetes, cancer recovery, all kinds of issues. We’re changing their lives and hopefully inspiring people watching at home who have similar issues to do the same.
Tune in to The Revolution Monday through Friday at 2pm ET/MT (1PT/CT) on Citytv.
(Interview has been edited and condensed.)