EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS AND INTERVIEW: ROSS MATHEWS
EXCLUSIVE photos and interview that ONLY LAVENDER HAS!
Photos by Vincent Sandoval. Makeup by Nancy Silva.
Ross Mathews, Part 2
Congratulations on the weight loss!
Thank you.
40 lbs?
Isn’t that incredible? That’s like change-your-life kinda stuff, right?
I’ve read that you struggled with yo-yo dieting in the past. Why do you think what you’re doing now is any different?
I was always an all or nothing kind of dieter. It was either I didn’t diet and I was a big person and that’s just it. Or it was I’m not going to eat a carb for two years and I’m going lose weight, but the second I start eating again I’m going to be totally lost and I’m going to have a bag of Doritos and it’s going to be 50 lbs later and I’m back where I started.
It was always up and down like that because I was so clueless about how to eat. And then Sara Rue, who’s a friend of mine, transformed herself with Jenny Craig and I asked her to hook me up. What I found with Jenny is that, yes, they have pre-packaged food but I didn’t know that you cook with it. You have a consultant and they teach you stuff you never learned, like what your plate should look like. There’s a formula. You need a quarter protein, a quarter grains and half veggies. Like, who knew that? I didn’t.
They try to ween you off the food, so now I’m going to restaurants and really understanding how to order, really knowing how to cook. And it really has just changed the game for me. That’s why I think I can do this forever.
So it’s not all or nothing. If you make one mistake you haven’t destroyed your goal.
I’ll call my consultant and say, “Oh my god, I feel like I messed up,” and she’ll be like, “No you didn’t, you just made a choice. So tomorrow morning make the choice to walk an extra block or pay yourself back somehow.” There’s balance. I get that. If I make one bad choice it doesn’t mean that I made that choice so let’s just have a whole cake. It’s not all or nothing.
Do you still let yourself have a whole cake sometimes, if you need to pull the emergency break?
I would try not to, but if I really wanted some cake I could totally have some cake. And if I had a little too much cake, I would just try and step it up the next day. I don’t love the exercising, I don’t get it, the people that do, I’m like, you’re a little nuts. But I found that I love walking my neighborhood because I say, “hi” to the neighbors, so I will just walk a few extra blocks, just to get that balance back.
What are your favorite snack foods?
When you’re on Jenny they have a ton of snack food. My favorite are the cheese curls. They’re like Chee-tohs. And every night I have a triple chocolate cheesecake. It’s like a little sliver of cake, because, like I said, there’s no bad food. I always have a little bit of whatever I want. I just try not to have too much of it and, if I do, I pay myself back.
But I love snacking and I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t snack. The first Seahawks game of the season is on ESPN tonight and I know I’m gonna be snacking while I watch it, so I have to shuffle my eating around for the day. I’ll save a few of the calories for during the football game.
You’re crazy busy. How do you maintain that approach when you’re on the go? Do you plan ahead?
I plan in terms of, like, OK, I know I’m going to be gone and dinner’s going to be an hour later because I’m in traffic, so I’m going to grab an apple before I leave the house, rather than swing through Taco Bell. Just that little bit of planning really does help. Then I also know that, if push comes to shove, a taco is not going to kill me and I’ve learned how to order at those places. Like, leave off the sour cream or go light on the cheese. Things like that. The little things really add up.
