Jeffrey Eisner - The Lighter Step-By-Step Instant Pot® Cookbook

Jeffrey, with all these recipes you make, how do you not weigh 300 pounds?!

I get that question a lot. And the truth is, I did once. It was the year 2000, I was a sophomore in college, and stepping on the scale racked up numbers like I had just bowled a perfect game. I was 19 years old. And I was (and still am) a food addict.

Remember Grandma Lil from my first book? Shes the one who inspired my love of cooking. But I also inherited her struggle with weight. She was a pleasantly plump woman who loved to eat as much as she loved to cook.

When I began college and experienced my first taste of the freedom of living solo, I also experienced the freedom to eat anything I wanted, whenever I wanted. For me that meant bacon, egg, and cheese bagels for breakfast, two cheeseburgers and fries for lunch, a milkshake and chips for a snack, 24 buffalo wings for dinner, and a pair of ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Not to mention I drank bottles of soda like water. So it wasnt shocking that, in my case, the freshman 15 was more the freshman 50. I simply chose to ignore how much my belly and waist were expanding. I avoided mirrors and scales. I was in full denial.

But one day, after going up yet another pants size, I couldnt handle it anymore. I took a deep breath and decided to face myself in the mirror days before New Years Eve. After a seriously sobering stare-down with that disappointed and depressed-looking young fella peering back at me, I decided to make a change. I set the goal that by my twentieth birthday, in six months time, I would lose 100 pounds and take charge of my health.

And I did.

But it didnt happen overnight. I took a step aerobics class (remember those?) that met twice a week, walked everywhere on campus, danced (terribly) in a production of