Ronnie Polaneczky: Guv cuts food intake in half, himself, too

LAST SUNDAY, when I tuned in to the Eagles post-game show on Comcast, I was feeling dejected about the Birds' 48-22 trouncing by the Saints. I was thinking that big losses sure hurt like hell.

Then I saw a close-up of Ed Rendell, and realized that not every big loss is a humiliation.

We all know Rendell has been on a diet, but have you seen our governor-cum-sports-pundit lately? The man has dropped so much weight, he could play doubles tennis inside his own suit.

And his face! The corpulence that had been squeezing his eyes into slits is gone. He looks years younger, like Ed the Handsome D.A., but with less hair.

Rendell has been many things to us: public servant, canny politician, rabid Philly sports fan, refreshingly blunt DNC top dog.

He's also been our Oprah - a charismatic talent whose on-again, off-again smack-down with his appetite makes us feel a little better about our own food compulsions. This has made him lovable, but it's never made him a role model for healthy living.

How crazy, then, that Rendell was recently stopped on a Harrisburg street by an excited constituent who told him, "My son's on the Ed Rendell diet!"

He meant it as a good thing.

"I'm not a fitness role model, but I'll keep talking about my diet if it'll help someone," Rendell told me yesterday, when I asked about his 48-pounds-lighter physique. (He wants to lose another 20 to reach 200 pounds on his 5-foot-11-inch frame.)

"I tell them the only way to seriously succeed on a diet is to put less food in your mouth."

The emphatic way he says it makes the concept sounds like a breakthrough insight. Then again, given how people try everything except eating less to lose weight, it's no wonder Rendell sounds like he's found the Holy Grail of slimness.

What he also found was the right motivation to stop chewing. His adult son, Jesse, told his dad how much he wanted him to live long enough to watch his (as-yet-to-be-conceived) grandkids play ball.

"My wife had been telling me there are no heavyset 85-year-olds," the 65-year-old governor recalls Midge Rendell saying. "But Jesse got my attention.

"When he was growing up, I made it to every single one of his games except one, which I missed because I had to do a live mayoral debate. I enjoyed those games more than a win at the World Series. I want that enjoyment again."

Rendell also wanted something positive to focus on these past months while waging the hellish state budget battle. Given that the man has always used food as a comfort - "On a stressful day, a meal is an island of pleasure," the governor waxes poetically - there was a chance he'd pack on more pounds unless he got it together, food-wise.

His diet is simple: Rendell eats half of what he used to. Instead of Subway's 12-inch meatball sub, he gets the 6-inch. Instead of consuming an entire "G-9" from the Sandwich Man in downtown Harrisburg, he eats only its innards - turkey, roast beef and melted American cheese, smothered in condiments - and leaves the gigantic toasted roll behind.

And on a recent family outing to Union Trust Steakhouse to celebrate lawyer Jesse's nice new job at Cozen O'Connor ("I told him it was his 'Last Supper' with me paying; he's buying next time"), he ordered the 20-ounce rib-eye but doggie-bagged half of it for the next night's meal.

"Eating only half is very economical," he says.

Rendell has stopped after-dinner snacking and avoids sweets altogether. He does, though, indulge drool-y memories of past late-night skulks to the kitchen, where he'd consume an entire half-gallon of Starbucks transcendently delicious mocha-chip ice cream.

"I'd wait until Midge was asleep," he says. "Have you had the Starbucks? It's to die for."

When I ask Rendell if he feels better, now that he's lost the equivalent weight of a large toddler, he says, surprisingly, "Not really. I've always felt good."

For years, he has worked out every day on a treadmill, and he says it allows him to climb stairs without getting winded, no matter what his weight. Thanks to good genetics - all four grandparents lived into their 90s; his mom made it to 89 - his blood pressure has always been 120/70, his cholesterol and heart rate within optimal levels.

"My dad was the aberration," he says of the father who dropped dead of a massive heart attack when Rendell was just 14. "He wasn't fat, but he smoked five packs a day and had a very stressful job in the garment industry. If he'd taken better care of himself, I don't think he

would've died so young."

Rendell hopes his weight loss will help him to go "full-tilt in my 80s" - like Penn State coach Joe Paterno and department- store founder Al Boscov.

But don't expect him to do a big bathing-suit reveal, à la actress Valerie Bertinelli, when he hits his goal weight.

"Believe me, the people of Pennsylvania do not want to see me in something that revealing," he says. "I'll settle for a nice polo shirt and pair of slacks."

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly.com/ ronnieblog.