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"The doctor panicked my family by saying I'm a walking time bomb, that it's a miracle I was still alive. He gave me six months more to live. I hated the man. I never wanted to see him again. The doctor said, 'Within six months your family will find you dead in a hotel room.' That was my reality check," Adnan told IANS.

He lost 85 kg (187 lbs) of his 200 kg (440 lbs) and the singer intends to lose at least 40 more in the coming months.

"I was living in denial for years, not facing up to the fact that I was obese. When wellwishers would warn me, I'd brush them off as being melodramatic. Would you believe, when I was in university I was sporty. I was the captain of my squash team.

"Surprisingly, I didn't become breathless while singing, though I did become asthmatic."

He says he resorted to food to cope with his divorce with first wife Zeba Bakhtiar, who played the title role in "Henna".

"When I went through my divorce, I was devastated by the end of the marriage and I lost custody of my son whom I completely adored. I began to look to food for emotional sustenance. It soon became a habit, even when I put my life together, the habit remained. I was gaining weight constantly.

"Food became an addiction. Soon my weight became an obstruction in my life. But surprisingly most of my faculties were in order. I did have a high blood pressure though. But that's a genetic problem."

Adnan's last meal before the dieting began?

"It was a huge porterhouse steak with mashed potatoes with butter and a huge New York cheese cake to top it all on June 6, 2006.

I ate it all on my own. Then I just gave up the food. And now I hate the sight of fatty food."

He has turned a vegetarian also.

"I'm allowed to eat any kind of meat, but I just don't feel like. I'm on a high-protein diet - no bread, no rice, no sugar and no oil.

My meals are salad for lunch and a bowl of daal with no seasoning in the night. For snack I've popcorn without butter. And I can have as many diet drinks as I want."

Adnan heaves a sigh of relief.

"I've got my sleep back. I had reached a point where I couldn't lie down flat on my back. It was so ironical. I'd be staying at the most beautiful presidential suites in the world and I couldn't use the damn beds! I had to sit upright and doze off. At the tail end of my obesity I was using a walking stick and a wheelchair to remain mobile. I had for gotten how to balance myself on my own two feet. It was a nightmare. I'd walk in constant fear of losing balance. Believe me there's no nobility in immobility."

Labels: adnan sami, Bollywood, obesity, singer

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