Battle of the Bulge release: February 12th
Some of us are stuck at the holiday dinner table even though we are well into 2008. People it’s time to get up and make sure we see another year, by getting healthy. I’m not in the shape I was 10 years ago when I was active in all kinds of sports. As my children grew so did my waistline, but hey man hey enough is enough.
Hip Hop artist Bone Crusher blew up the clubs and the streets with the 2003 release of AttenCHUN! which featured the energizing mesmerizing mega hit Neva Scared. He now has his own label and is ready once again to take over. His new track Transform is sure to be a club banger so make sure you put it in heavy rotation when it’s released.
Bone Crusher recently competed on Celebrity Fit Club and lost over 50 pounds–setting a record for the show. He’s promoting “Battle of the Bulge” a DVD for folks with a couple of extra pounds looking to slim down and stay healthy. He dropped by TSF to offer some words of encouragement to those in need. He had me rollin’ during this interview. He’s just one of those cats that just gets it. Enjoy.
Michael Tillery: What’s good bruh? What do you have goin’ on with Vainglorious Entertainment and personally as a recording artist?
Bone Crusher: I’m fantastically outstanding! I’m working on a couple of things right now. I’m in negotiations with a few people. I have a new album coming out on my label, Vainglorious–through Universal–called Planet Crusher. It’s crazy! The first single is Transform with me and Fabo. The second single is me, Alpha Mega and Ludacris called Giants.
MT: I know you are loving your career right?
BC: Yes my brotha! Anytime you can wake up 10, 11 or two o’clock and your light is still on, that’s a beautiful thing!
MT: I heard that. Did you enjoy Fit Club? How much of it was production?
BC: Man they didn’t hide nothin’. 98% of that stuff was all real. Obviously, they edited material to fit into the hour time frame. None of that stuff was fake. All those Fit Camps we did? They were all real. They actually were longer! A fit camp lasts about 8 hours. So that was 8 hours of workin’ out.
MT: Damn! I would have fell out on TV. What was it like working with Angie Stone, Nick Turturro, Ted Lange, Vincent Pastore and some of the other cast?
BC: Man that was great. Angie and I are good friends. Nick, Erica (Eleniak), and Carnie (Wilson) are good friends. I’m also good friends with the other team: Ted (Lange), Vinnie (Vincent Pastore) and Tina (Yothers). It was a wonderful situation. It was definitely a great experience for me.
MT: Since you lost so much weight, do you think you provided inspiration for everyone else on the show to do the same?
BC: Yeah man. The think about it is that a lot of people on the show were looking at me as the guy to lose weight. Every weigh in I would lose between 5 and 15 pounds. I would go out there and do my thing. I was team captain, so I had to lead by example. I had to make everyone understand the Fat Crushers were gonna win the whole thing.
MT: Talk about your DVD The Battle of the Bulge. What are your goals and aspirations regarding this release?
BC: Me and my manager had an idea doing a DVD for mildly obese people that can’t move in hospitals–something of that nature. We wanted to use people that are this size to give positive encouragement in hopes people would say, “If he’s doing it, then I can do it”. That was the whole premise behind the DVD. We came up with the name The Battle of the Bulge while walking in New York. I thought about all the elderly people in hospitals that are bedridden. I’m actually using my DVD right now because I have a cyst on the back of my leg from working out too hard. It’s working out very well man. You still get the same cardio. In three sets you can burn between three and five hundred calories.
That’s a good workout!
Bone Crusher: “Cook your own foods, work out, work out, work out.”
If you watch was you are eating…I’ve been trying to do that. Like I tell everybody, it’s not easy. I’m struggling too. That’s also the premise of the DVD–that we are still fighting and struggling together to get the weight off. It ain’t a situation where you see a bunch of skinny people all in shape with 6 packs, 12 packs or 35 packs (Laughter)!
Then you are like man c’mon. I’ll never get down. That alone is psychological discouragement. Seeing fine ladies on there with leotards looking good already in shape. You say man I’m never ever getting that little! So you are like forget this!
So that’s the whole thing. Chains like Walmart and Target have pre-ordered this thing. We’ve surpassed 30,000 pre-orders already.
MT: Wow! That’s whassup! This is more about health and not appearance right?
BC: Oh damn right.
MT: Could you comment on the steroids scandal allegedly involving some of your peers? What is the message you are trying to get across to the kids to repel the attraction to drugs?
BC: I don’t think they used steroids. That’s all alleged. I don’t think 50 used steroids. 50 works out really hard. Mary J. Blige works out really hard to get that body. Steroids don’t help you lose weight. They enhance what you are doing. Even if they were using–I’m not saying they were.
For me, it is about losing weight, getting yourself healthy, and that’s the whole thing behind it. Getting your cholesterol down. There’s people out here right now running three or four miles a day that die because they are eating weird. It’s all about your individual body makeup. If I eat a certain way, I’ll lose weight. That might not be the case for you. I learned that in Fit Camp too. It’s all about the regiment. Some people it didn’t work for them as well. You have to figure out your personal regiment and get down what you can and can not eat.
It’s not trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mary J Blige or Beyonce. Beyonce has her own physique. You have to look like your best you.
I’ve always been like that. If you know anything about me or ever seen me on stage, I love me! I’m gonna take my clothes off, get buck nekked and everythang! I enjoy having fun and just being who I am you know?
MT: I heard that!
Folks lose weight, get complacent and gain it all back. Any suggestions on how they can keep it off?
BC: That is a more common thing than not. People get to a certain weight and they hit a wall and then they end up gaining.
I gained a little back too. I’m trying to lose another thirty to forty pounds to get a little more weight off of me. That’s hard. You have to understand that it’s gonna be hard work. Nothing in life worth having is easy. That’s what I had to learn from the Fit Camp. It’s not just a crash diet. It’s a lifestyle change. I never say diet. People say, “You should go on a diet.” I say I don’t diet. I had to change my lifestyle for me to live a certain way. I stopped eating a lot of pork. I don’t eat pork anymore. I cut that out. I try not to eat a lot of bread. I try not to eat a lot of sugar–refined sugar.
Yesterday I went to see Cloverfield so i needed something to eat. That in itself is what it’s all about–the struggle. Food is a drug for a lot of people. It’s a drug for me. It’s a drug for you. You like to eat. I like to eat. There’s a lot of chemicals in food–not like it used to be. There’s a lot of steroid induced food. Animals are injected with all kinds of drugs. That stuff is addictive. It’s not like it used to be in the 60′s and 70′s.
People weren’t openly obese or big like that. It has a lot to do with population control. It’s a lot of reasons why food is so bad. That’s what I try to share with people. The more you eat of it, the worse your body is going to get. I try my best to eat at home as much as possible. Cooking your own food helps to keep the weight off.
Cook your own foods, work out, work out, work out. Work out at least 30 minutes a day and you will see a significant change in your body.
Sweat is getting out all that salt in your blood. As we all know, water helps you lose weight too. Drink a lot of water. Stay off the liquor. Stay away from the sodas. Certain juices have a lot of sugar in them. Stay away from all that.
I’m not telling you to stop everything cold turkey. If you do that you will go back at it 10 fold. You were eating 1, 2 or 3 hamburgers and now you are eating six because you completely relapsed. You have to ween yourself off of it. Trust me I’m in a fight!. I’m in a struggle. My wife gets on me. She tells me I shouldn’t be eating that pie! It’s just a little piece of pie. You can eat almost anything you want to eat; just in smaller portions.
Instead of a Whopper, get a Whopper Jr. and a small fry. Like I said, food is a drug. It is what it is. It’s no different than heroin, cocaine or those other bad things. The difference is that you have to have it. Eat to live not live to eat.
Shit, man I used to go through some food man! I used to get a hold of a 8 piece of chicken, some mac and cheese and some greens!
I can’t do that now. I cut that down. I can eat a 3 piece. If I get crazy I can go for 4, but that’s it. Then I go to the gym so I can work out.
MT: What do you put in those greens now that you don’t eat pork?
BC: I put smoked turkey in them. Smoke turkey give them the same taste. It’s no different. All you are getting from the pork is the salt. Turkey meat has a lot less fat. Cut down your fat intake.
There’s other kinds of sugars. You ever heard of a place called Whole Foods?
MT: Nah.
BC: Where are you now?
MT: I moved from Maryland. I’m in Philly.
BC: Well those Whole Foods are all over the place. They sell organic foods. Fruit juices aren’t sweetened with sugar. It tastes the same. It’s much better for you.
MT: What’s the best thing to happen to you since you’ve lost weight?
BC: Just that I feel good. I feel like a million dollars. My show is crazy now. I’m on a whole another level. My homeboy is on maternity leave–his people had a baby–so I’m on stage by myself. The energy level has just increased so much. I can do my same show without having a hype man. Because of my leg I can’t do my full workout, so I do 500 side to side leg exercises in the bed. I take my arms and go up and down, up and down, up and down. Then I take my arms parallel from each other and hold them up for about 10 minutes. That does it to. You get a good sweat out of it. It’s straight working out with your own body and you get really strong and tough.
MT: Any chance you parlay this weight loss into a role on Gladiators?
BC: (Bone laughs) Man I don’t know man. We’ll probably have all of those too. We’re gonna make this a series and then add cookware. I’m a cook and a chef, so we’re gonna add everything. We’re gonna keep this going.
MT: Alright bruh! Thanks for this. Hopefully I’ll see you at the All Star Game. Be peace.
BC: Thanks Mike. See you there. Peace.
