Hi, I’m Daniel.

Evolution Daniel: Story of Repeated Failures

Childhood

See, despite what I look like now, I’m a former fat Italian kid from Long Island. And while I’m no longer fat, I am still Italian!

In my family lasagna equals love. And there was a lot of love growing up, if you know what I mean.  

Not to mention, I was an only child in an empty home. Both of my parents worked full time and I was left to myself a lot. Food was friend. Food was entertainment. Something I knew would make me feel good without fail. I grew up that way, constantly looking to food to make me feel something, maybe because I was bored, or lonely, or I’d done well at school and food was my chosen reward. I loved it that much. I remember the excitement I felt, every time, driving up to the McDonalds drive-thru.

The result? I was fat! I grew up a fat kid. No big surprise there.  

Here’s a tearjerker. From K-8, I went to a small private Catholic school and had to wear a uniform. I’ll never forget how embarrassing it felt to be called “husky” in front of the other kids.

It was the first day of 1st grade and the teacher called each student to the front of the room to pick up his or her uniform. A suit for children. A sign of maturation.  

“Jenny, small.”

“Nicholas, medium.”

“Daniel….husky.”  

Crushed is one way to put it. Of course you pretend you’re not affected, you laugh along with your friends at your own embarrassment, because you better get used to it: When you’re fat, embarrassed is an identity you wear on a regular basis.

It really hurts. Especially when you’re a kid. Being fat changes the way you relate to yourself, and to others.    

(By the way, I’m pretty sure “husky” is no longer a size offered to children, or ANYONE. Jeeeeeezus. I’m also pretty sure that, nowadays, that teacher would be fired on the spot for publicly flogging an 8 year old.)   

So I did. I learned how to deal with it. I didn’t let the weight control me, despite my love for eating. I was super active growing up, and thanks to my British father a damn good soccer player. Here’s me in all my glory a few years after the husky episode:

My love for sport somewhat countered my deeper love for eating, but damn boy those are some round cheeks you got there!

Early 20s

Years later while studying English and Economics at Georgetown (I’m a recovering academic and, in another life, was preparing myself for a career in Law…a story for a different time), I started to get serious about my health. I didn’t know anything about nutrition and, the workhorse I was, began exercising seven days a week, sometimes even twice a day.

But it didn’t work. I was still 35 pounds overweight, for three obvious reasons that weren’t so obvious at the time:

1. I was addicted to food and didn’t know it. (I know what it’s like to stand in front of the fridge and just eat and eat and eat, almost like you’re possessed, like you don’t have choice.)  
2. I was/am an emotional eater. (Emotional eating is the primary reason people can’t stick to their diets. We’re all emotional beings and often let our emotions dictate our decisions, even if we know better. Sound familiar?)   
3. Diets don’t work! (If you need proof, just read this horrific study on The Biggest Loser.)

…And thus began my lifelong study into diet, nutrition and the psycho-emotional roots of why we eat so unhealthily when we know better, want more from life, expect more from ourselves, and have free access to all the information we need.     

Skinny…but stupid.

Right after college, I stumbled onto a book that would change my life forever: Robb Wolf’s “The Paleo Solution.” Instead of seeing to the responsibilities of my Manhattan desk job, I read and re-read Robb’s book obsessively, often hiding it under the keyboard when my boss walked by (what’s up, Jay), and picking right back up when he was out of site.

Nowadays, “Paleo” has gained more widespread acceptance and is increasingly crossing over into commercial consumerism. Indeed, sadly, it’s often employed as a selling prop, a branding buzzword misused to sell gluten-free products made of sweet-tasting additives and preservatives. But back then, the whole Paleo movement was new. No one was talking about it. At least, no one I knew.                 

At the heart of the original Paleo movement, and why I found it so appealing, was its simplicity. It asked the very basic question, “What did our ancient ancestors eat?” Since they and their digestive systems evolved for millions of years eating specific foods, we modern humans could probably learn a thing or two…especially since we’re not doing so hot with the whole “health” thing.

After kicking gluten and most dairy from my diet, the fat practically melted off. It was almost cruel, compared to how hard I’d been trying to lose weight the previous five years.

The best part? I love to eat and could eat a TON of food and still lose weight. For example, most days were comprised of big-ass salads that featured bacon, sleeves of eggs, hefty cuts of meat and fish, and lots and lots of butter. I never once counted calories, never even thought about it. So long as I was eating like my hunter & gatherer ancient ancestors, I was doing it right.

Like I said, simple.

But that wasn’t it. The benefits went well beyond my weight.

For one, I stopped getting sick. For as long as I could remember, I was asthmatic and highly sensitive to seasonal allergies. After cleaning up my diet, that disappeared entirely. My mood, too, started to shift. Since my energy was more stable (I didn’t need to snack on sugar throughout the day for energy, but instead tapped into my fat stores, a far more efficient energy source), I felt more empowered. My mood wasn’t something beyond me, but was actually something I had choice over. This was a revolutionary idea, especially for someone who grew up depressed, highly anxious, and had been on antidepressants for a number of years (aka, ME).  

So then I lived happily ever after, right?

Not exactly. Here’s the embarrassing part.     

Despite getting in the best shape of my life, I soon tipped too far in the other direction. To put it lightly, I became obsessed with how I looked. God bless my ex-girlfriend for putting up with me as long as she did, because I was a tremendous asshole. A narcissist of the worst order.  

It got so bad that I quit my job at WME, the best talent agency in the world, and pursued a career as a model and actor, apropos of nothing whatsoever other than my looks. (In case you’re curious, this is not a good way to make serious life choices.)

Proof of how stupid I got. If ever again I pose, unironically, in my underwear, I give you permission to pull the trigger. (Years later, I bought the rights to all of my modeling images and pulled them from the internet.)

Unsurprisingly, this endeavor failed, spectacularly. After spending nearly thirty thousand dollars on grad school for stage acting, moving across the country to pursue a fraudulent dream of becoming a movie star, and breaking up with the love of my life, I was left in Los Angeles with nothing to my name and nothing to stand behind. I hated myself and I hated what my life had become, and it was entirely my fault—which I knew but couldn’t admit. A real knucklehead, someone’s dad might say.

From this place a miracle occurred.  

I stopped focusing on myself and started focusing on others. Yes, that was the miracle.

People would come to me and ask for my help with their diet and weight loss struggles. Rather than feel superior, as I once did, I started to listen. I engaged. I helped. Holy shit.

Everything changed the day my friend, Matt, paid me to coach him to change his diet and lose weight the right way.   

At the time, I didn’t even know coaching was even a “thing.” That someone wanted to pay me for something I did purely for myself was preposterous. The second he put the money in my hand, however, a lightbulb went off. “I can do this exactly because of all my failures!” I realized. “They’ve made me an expert at how to eat healthily despite everything else in life going wrong.”    

Eureka.

And thus EvolutionEat was born, and so too my career as an entrepreneur, coach and problem solver. I now lead a life in service of others, and it’s changed everything.

With nutrition coaching, I brought all of my years of academic training, psychological study, and self-experimentation. I also brought my own history as a fat kid, food addict, emotional eater, clinically depressed prescription-drug user, and, as I’ve just shared, world-class screw up. (I say that with love and laughter; I’m grateful for all of my mistakes, they’ve made me who I am today.)         

I quickly become certified as a NASM professional Health Coach (although I’m not too sure that really means anything, no disrespect) and, years later, am training to become a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) by the ICF.   

(To learn more about what I am and what I’m not, please read this very formal-sounding disclaimer. Seriously, read it if you have a medical condition, feel possessed by food and thinking about food in a threatening way, or believe you have an eating disorder.)

Here’s the bottom line: When it comes to emotional eating, stress eating and all kinds of habitual overeating, you can’t just give someone a diet and say, ‘Here, good luck!’ There’s a lot more going on under the hood that influences one’s decision-making, and there’s a key distinction between someone “trying” a new diet for a few months and fully adopting a diet as a lifestyle choice, and therefore an expression of one’s being.    

That’s what I’m here to uncover and teach.