Losing weight is no easy task, but Billy Gardell is proving to everyone – especially himself – what is possible when you take things one day at a time. He didn’t see a transformation overnight and no one ever will, but he was able to drop nearly 150 pounds in three years once he started taking it seriously.
Gardell once weighed as much as 370 pounds, but now he’s just 205-210 pounds when he stands on the scale – something he credits to a change in mindset, diet, exercise, and bariatric weight loss surgery. The 53-year-old stressed the importance of self-care in an interview with Entertainment Tonight this week.
His transformation is out of this world!
It all started at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when his doctors recommended he undergo bariatric weight loss surgery to minimize his risk of getting sick from the disease that was ravaging the entire globe. At the time, he also started to change his eating habits and adopt self-care principles.
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“I think you got to find peace with yourself and at some point, look in the mirror and go, ‘You know, it’s probably time to take care of you.’ And I didn’t get that note early on. But I’m a big believer that when you get it, you get it. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you get it,” he said of the importance of self-care.
Billy Gardell, who’s best known for his roles in Mike & Molly and Bob Hearts Abishola, went on to explain that his resting heart rate – which used to be as high as 113 – is now at 68 (a healthy heart rate is between 60 and 100). Another benefit of his new healthy ways – he no longer has Type 2 diabetes.
While he’s ‘walking around pretty healthy these days,’ as he put it, Gardell is learning that people will always find something negative to say online. Where people used to comment about him being too big, they now comment about him looking sick and underweight. “Can I just walk the earth, please?” he says.
And, while he has come a long way in his health journey, he still has a way to go. Among all the bad habits he has overcome since 2020, Billy Gardell admits he still smokes cigarettes. “But I’m working on that one. A buddy of mine told me, ‘Knock them down in the order they’re killing you,’” he explained.
Billy Gardell Gets All the Motivation He Needs From His Son
Billy Gardell has been married to Patty Knight for more than two decades – they married in 2001 – and the couple share one son together, William, who was born in 2003. In his interview with Entertainment Tonight this week, Gardell said his son was a major source of motivation during his weight loss journey.
“When you hit 50, you start doing that dad math, like, ‘If I can live 25 more years, and he’ll be 40,’ … You know what I mean? So I want to be here for him,” he said – adding he’s been a good example for his son in some ways, but not so much in other ways. This is just another way he can set that good example.
And if there’s anything his son learns or takes away from his weight loss journey, he wants it to be that ‘you can change anything’ so long as you are ‘willing to do something a day at a time’ – adding it ‘doesn’t matter what age you are.’ Getting started is the hardest part, but the benefits you reap make it worth it.
Gardell also gave a shout-out to his ‘wardrobe guy’ and ‘makeup people’ on the set of Bob Hearts Abishola. Viewers got to see his transformation in real-time as they worked his weight loss journey into his character’s timeline. He credits them for helping him look good all the way through the progression.
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“That was one of the gifts of the show was to be able to, you know, talk to our producers and say, ‘This is what I want to do’ and they were incredibly supportive and they just gave little nods to it as it was happening,” he said of the show’s staff. The show currently airs Mondays at 8:30 p.m. on CBS.
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