Lenox Hill weight-loss program helps Holbrook man drop 265 lbs.

HIS STORY

Scott Capone’s path to better health was complicated. Capone, 48, of Holbrook, had a lifelong propensity for being overweight and his career in financial planning, while successful, was sedentary. In 2000, his weight hit 300 pounds and stayed there.

During the 2008-09 economic downturn, his daily stress level catapulted. “We were afraid to answer the phone because it was either someone screaming or an old lady crying,” says Capone.

He knew he needed to get healthy to manage the stress and started an extremely intense workout program. But three months into the program, a brain hemorrhage put him in a coma. He awoke two months later in the neural intensive care unit at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. During a monthlong stay at a rehab facility, Capone progressed from a wheelchair to a walker to canes to no assistance.

But the relative inactivity caused his weight to increase to 450 pounds. “It was the lowest point of my life. I felt like the living dead,” says Capone. After two years he got mad at himself thinking, “I survived something most people don’t survive and now I’m going to blow this second chance by dying of a heart attack?”

After much research, he joined a medically supervised weight-loss program at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. His team consisted of doctors, a personal trainer, a bariatric psychologist, and a nutritionist. He lost 265 pounds in 2 1⁄2 years and says he started living a life he didn’t know was possible.

Capone left the financial planning industry. “I only started living at age 45 when I got rid of that weight,” he says.

HIS DIET

Capone sticks to high-protein, low-carbohydrate meal plans and finds that five small meals a day work for him. He has either oatmeal or fruit salad for breakfast and a protein shake midmorning. Lunch can be a salad or one slice of pizza (he used to have four). Dinner can be fish and vegetables. He snacks on a protein bar or almonds.

SEE PHOTOSHow did these 150 LIers drop up to 320 lbs. each?

HIS EXERCISE

Capone does high-intensity cardio (bike, treadmill, elliptical or rowing) and weight training two hours a day, three times a week.

HIS ADVICE

“It’s never too late to change your life. You can live a life that you never thought was possible. You need a team to do it right.”