My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World

Jeff Garlin shares his hysterical and eye-opening journey to reduce his waistline and his carbon footprint during the production of the seventh season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm

Jeff Garlin has dedicated the filming of an entire season of Curb Your Enthusiasm to completely making over his lifestyle in two major ways—by lightening his physical and his ecological footprints. After many false starts, he believes that writing a book about the experiment is the only possible way to help him lose weight and go green.

The hardest part of the endeavor is overcoming his food addiction—especially when craft service has a constant buffet of everything delicious you could imagine on set. In addition to cutting calories, Jeff accidentally falls into a love affair with pilates, sweats with Richard Simmons, and twice visits the Pritikin Longevity Center, which he says is "rehab for people who eat too much pizza." Larry David’s rooting for him. Jerry Seinfeld’s plotting against him. And his wife is just plain annoyed by everything.

As far as going green, Jeff has always been a big recycler, but he has a lot to learn. For example, actor Ed Begley Jr. is the guy to call if you want to reduce your environmental impact. Jeff does, and it changes everything.

He hopes that being healthy and green becomes a big part of who he is—if not now, when?