UrbanUpdate

Chris Distefano has been rising in comedy for well over a decade, but even with a Netflix special and multiple successful podcasts under his belt, he says nothing has felt quite like selling out Radio City Music Hall and the theater at Madison Square Garden on back-to-back nights this past September.

He prepared for these performances when it came to his comedy, obviously, but he’s also been working on improving himself mentally and physically. The comedian told GQ about deciding to give up social media while simultaneously getting into intermittent fasting, how his daughter keeps him honest, and working on “feeling like an athlete” in day-to-day life.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: I know you’ve been talking about intermittent fasting on your podcast—how’s that been going?

Chris Distefano: I started in August of last year. Last year, I got on the scale and I was like 255 pounds. The thing is with me, no one really notices it. Inly I noticed it. If you look at a picture of me a year ago you’d be like, oh, he doesn’t look too different. Now people will tell me I look different, but the weight was there then and I felt like shit and I hated it.

So, I said I’ve gotta do two things in my life right now: I’ve gotta get off social media and I’ve gotta lose weight and feel like an athlete again. It’s one of those things where I just said that in my mind, but I think if you silently ask the universe for something sometimes it gives it back to you.

About an hour later I’m sitting on Twitter even though I said I’m getting off social media, and when I was scrolling, I saw a tweet from Elon Musk saying he’d just lost a lot of weight using this intermittent fasting app called Zero.

I downloaded that app that day. It was August 25th, which is the day before my birthday and I just thought, “You’re gonna change your eating habits. This is the last fucking morning you’re waking up feeling like shit and wondering why you ate so late last night. You’re not doing it anymore.” I just got mad at myself, but I kept it all in.

The mistake I used to make a lot was telling everybody what I’m about to do because I thought if I put pressure on myself, I’ll do it. It just set me up for failure. I realized that this is just about me and I don’t need to announce it to anyone.

So, I did it. I started with a 16-hour fast. They said on the app not to worry about what you’re eating in your fasting window in the beginning—just focus on staying in your fasting window. In those first few weeks if all you’re gonna eat is chocolate cake in your eight hours, then do it. And then, just like the app said, after about a week of doing it I didn’t want to binge anymore in the eight hour window.

After being 255 on August 25th, I was 247 by October 10th. Eight pounds had just come off. In the past, I would always be unrealistic and think I had to lose 50 pounds in a month. With this app, you watch the science explain why your weight may go up and down, and I have this scale called a Renpho and it shows how that’s exactly what my weight has done—a little up, a little down. Then if you look at the last eight months, it’s gone from 255 to 212. All the while going a little up and a little down.

Are you working out through all of this?

Yes. I always worked out, but I never really got the results. I mean, I did in college—I was a college athlete, and sports were my whole life. But then I would still eat like an athlete thinking that if I got my workout in, I’d be fine. Then, I had my kids and it slowly started to happen. If I look at my last comedy special I can see a little weight in my face and little bloat from drinking.

For this career, I know I want to be presentable—sex sells or whatever. But nobody in my life was like, “Dude, you’re getting out of control.” The problem is, I could hide it. People would think I was in shape and it would hurt me because I would almost rather be the guy who was just obviously fat. I had a casting director say to me, “You have leading man face and best friend body.” It was shocking to people because you couldn’t see it in my face.

Do you feel like that’s changed?

I’m not saying I’m the most shredded guy in the world, but I did hot yoga last week and I had no problem taking my shirt off because my body looks in-range of what my face looks like.

That’s what I mean—it used to be so embarrassing to me because you see me and you think I’m in shape until I take off my shirt. That made me feel horrible. So, I just wanted to make it where it was matching, so to speak. I just wanted to feel good and like I was disciplined in something and sticking to something. Getting off social media and the fasting went hand-in-hand.

Why do you think that is?

I know what people always say—oh, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle—but that’s really true. I never understood what they meant, but now I’m living it and it has changed my life.

In what specific way do you think social media was impacting you?

I think my eight to nine months off gives me a pretty good window to be able to look back and dissect. I think what had happened, even with my comedy, but specifically talking about the weight loss stuff, I would be on a journey of not not eating carbs or working out for two or three weeks. Then, inevitably I’d be scrolling social media like a mindless zombie and find some fitness account with some guy who’s really ripped and jacked. Subconsciously I’d start to feel awful about myself. I’d think, “Chris, you think you’re gonna get anywhere? Look at this guy! You don't have that discipline.”

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It wasn’t in the front of my mind, but it was deep in the back of my mind and it would plant seeds of doubt over weeks and weeks and the next thing you know, this fitness journey that had started out great would be over. Now, I’ve taken all that away and I don’t look at it. I have the privilege of being able to have someone run my social media for me. I don’t compare myself to anyone anymore. Even in comedy, I don’t know what anyone else is doing. The benefit of that for me is that I’m just happy for everyone because I’m happy with me and my career. It used to be that I’d sell out three shows in Boston, but then I’d see on social media that some comic sold out seven. Now, all I know is that I sold out and I’m happy. I’m not comparing myself all day everyday. I would even compare myself to myself. I’d look back six months ago at a perfectly-cropped picture and think I had to get back there. Maybe that version of me was fucking miserable, but you don’t remember!

How has it been to get off social media as someone who uses it to promote their shows?

One of my friends told me that I should stop saying on podcasts that I don’t run my social media because fans want to feel like they can communicate with you. I said absolutely not. I’m so against people being on social media that I would feel like a fraud telling them to go on and talk to me if I’m not on it.

Everything you see on my social media has my approval or it’s my video that I send to my social media guy. My friends will ask how I just give someone else my passwords, but I have to give somebody else the keys because it is so bad for me.

So do you plan to keep it going with the intermittent fasting and social media?

I started with 16 hours of no eating and then eight hours of a fasting window. Pretty much 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. is where I lived, and one day a week I would have a day to go nuts. I felt like I hit a bit of a plateau on the scale, which I’m not as focused on anymore, but also just a mental plateau because it can get boring. So now what I do is push myself to do a 20-hour fast one day a week. Then the next day I’ll do 16, then 18, then 16 hours again.

What’s your vice?

Sweets are my vice. I love sweets, I’d eat sweets all day, every day. I’d eat a whole fucking cheesecake right now. But—and this is very new—now I only eat sweets on Saturday. That’s because my daughter had heard us talking about diabetes and asked me if I was going to be a diabetic. Her mom was like, “Well, he eats a lot of sugar, he could be.” My daughter said, “You can only have sweets once a week now, daddy. Promise me.” Once your little girl is like “I dare you to lie to me,” you’re never going to.

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This sounds like a great reason to have kids, honestly.

Oh yeah. She keeps me honest. I went to Italy last week with her mom, and before we left she said, “Daddy, I’m going to allow you to have sweets for three days while you’re gone cause it’s Italy and grandma told me that they have the best gelato.”

How do you manage on the road? Do you tell them not to bring food to your green room?

No, because I want the other people to enjoy, but it’s not for me. For me, it’s not deprivation and it actually makes the food taste better when I can eat it. I’ll bring yogurt and vegetables and things with me on the road and I’ll eat that in my hotel room in my fasting window. Knowing I didn’t cheat the day before the day makes me wake up the next day with a pep in my step.

How often are you on the road?

Two weekends a month. I typically try to have one of those weekends not require me to get on a plane. But for June and July, I’m off the road. I’m going to still do comedy and my podcasts. I do the Comedy Cellar and New York Comedy Club and those places on average twice a week, but I’ll do more when I’m off from traveling.

Tell me about workouts—what are you doing in the gym?

Well, according to the science on Zero, after 16-hours of a fast, you go into the fat-burning zone and that’s when you want to exercise. It sounds like a lot, but once you get into the swing of it you get used to it.

On the road one thing I do now, regardless of what workout I’m doing, is every single day I try to get in 50—now it’s up to 100—pull-ups and 200 push-ups. I’ll do sets of them. That’s my standard no matter what I’m doing. Then, I follow this YouTube account called ATHLEAN-X and what I’ve just incorporated recently is videos from V Shred. I’ve also just started boxing. The working out, I do it every day, but I’ll be honest—I don’t stick to such a regimen. I want it to be fun. I feel like because I stay vigilant with the intermittent fasting, while I still work out hard, I feel like I don’t have to work out as hard.

Do you ever get super hungry and think “screw this”?

I get super hungry every day. I just drink the water and then I visualize what I’m going to eat the next day for breakfast and I get so happy.

What are you eating?

Typically, when I wake up it’s a delayed breakfast. Normally, it’s egg whites, avocado and onions in a wrap with a little ketchup and a protein shake. This morning, it was cold oatmeal with pumpkin seeds, which have a lot of protein. I’ll also have a scoop of Athletic Greens with a shot of apple cider vinegar in lemon water.

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For lunch, I have a rule that I have to have a salad every day. Some days that salad might be the meal, some days not, but typically for lunch I’ll have the salad with either grilled chicken, fish or sometimes a sandwich.

Dinner will typically be the lightest for me. If I’m home, it’ll be whatever Jas [his partner] is cooking.

Back to the apple cider vinegar with Athletic Greens—are you having to chug that?

I used to, but now what starts to happen is that you just get used to the taste of shit. I heard 21 days, but my mind has just adjusted to the new reality. It’s just not as disgusting as it was, or maybe it is, but I can just tolerate it.

It’s like with meditation—I do Transcendental Meditation—it’s not that my allergies are any better than they were a year ago, it’s just that since I’ve been meditating I deal with my allergy symptoms better.

How often are you meditating?

With Transcendental Meditation you’re supposed to do 20 minutes twice a day. I set that as a goal and 95 percent of the time I can’t do it. At the very least I try to get 10 minutes a day.

It’s the same way you’ve gotta exercise discipline with your eating and in the gym. I feel like when I’m meditating, it’s not so much that I’m getting all of this clarity, but it’s just calming down my mind. It’s almost like the storm starts to settle and the things that start to actually matter kind of pop to the front of my head.

OK, as for comedy, I just heard your podcast with Colin Quinn and he made fun of you because wanting to host Saturday Night Live is your dream. I wanted to know, if they reached out and asked you to host tomorrow, who would you tell first?

My mom. She’s a humongous SNL fan. She’s like the person that knows the random actress who won a Golden Globe in 1981. She loves Hollywood. So she’d be the first person I’d tell because my daughters wouldn’t know what the hell I’m talking about and Jasmine wouldn’t care. Well, she would care, but it just wouldn’t mean as much to her as it would my mom.

Hosting SNL is another thing that I would say is on my bucket list of dreams. And by the way, we’ve got Radio City sold out, and if we sell out the theater at Madison Square Garden—if we sell out those two then the hope is to get Madison Square Garden.

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