Eminem used Exercise to Lose Weight and Beat Drug Addiction
Rapper's drug addiction caused weight gain
Eminem talks about his addiction to prescription pills and how he put on extra weight where at one stage he was over 200 lbs.
The Detroit rapper whose real name is Marshall Mathers has received 15 Grammy awards to date and is one of the world best selling artists. He is also a songwriter and producer and starred in the 2002 film 8 Mile. The song 'Lose Yourself' won him an Academy Award for the best original song.
This is an interview with Men's Journal where he explains that in the past he had gone to the gym and did workouts but it was mainly something he did to keep in shape for performing his music.
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In 2007, I overdosed on pills, and I went into the hospital. I was close to 230 pounds. I'm not sure how I got so big, but I have ideas. The coating on the Vicodin and the Valium I'd been taking for years leaves a hole in your stomach, so to avoid a stomachache, I was constantly eating — and eating badly.
When I got out of rehab, I needed to lose weight, but I also needed to figure out a way to function sober. Unless I was blitzed out of my mind, I had trouble sleeping. So I started running. It gave me a natural endorphin high, but it also helped me sleep, so it was perfect. It's easy to understand how people replace addiction with exercise. One addiction for another but one that's good for them. I got an addict's brain, and when it came to running, I think I got a little carried away. I became a hamster. Seventeen miles a day on a treadmill. I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles in about an hour. Then I'd come home and run another eight and a half. I started getting OCD about the calories, making sure I burned 2,000 every day. In the end, I got down to about 149 pounds. I ran to the point where I started to get injured. All the constant pounding from the running began to tear up my hip flexors.
Now every morning before I go to the studio, I do the Body Beast workout with free weights, a bench, and a pullup bar at home. It's just me, so it helps that the Body Beast dude is over-the-top. The routine is pretty intense, too. The first time I did the legs, I couldn't walk for two days. Now I'm doing arms one day, chest the next day, legs the next, and I'm still functioning throughout the day. And I can finally do it without pausing the DVD.
I still hate pullups, but I do them. I even fill out the log afterward. I guess I'm pretty compulsive working out. I feel like if I step away from it for too long, if I have a crazy week and take a five-day break, it'll be like starting over. I'm afraid that if it goes beyond that, I might lose the motivation. Once you're at a place where you've made progress and you've got some time invested in it, you don't wanna quit and give up what you started.
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