Jim Gaffigan Lost 50 Pounds And Says Gardening Helps Him Eat Healthier

Jim Gaffigan said that growing vegetables encouraged him to eat them.

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• Besides taking Mounjaro, a weight-loss drug, Jim Gaffigan found that gardening benefited his health.
• He said gardening encouraged him to eat healthier and helped him achieve his fitness goals.
• Incorporating more vegetables into the diet can increase happiness, according to a nutrition expert

Jim Gaffigan's hack to eating more greens is to grow them himself.

In an interview with Men's Health published on Tuesday, the comedian opened up about his weight loss.

"I've always been kind of a compulsive eater," he said in the magazine's "Eat Like" video segment. "The whole concept of eating healthy and living healthy is very foreign to me. It took a while for me to kind of climb on board that," he added.

Gaffigan, 58, said he decided to live healthier when he noticed his metabolism slowing.

"Big thing that made me eat healthier is I started gardening," he added. "That was a big change. Now I love it. I can achieve some fitness goals, believe it or not, puttering around the garden."

Gardening has also encouraged him to eat better. "Growing vegetables makes you more interested in consuming those vegetables, which makes you healthier, which makes you kind of look at what you're consuming, which makes fast food look like the crap that it is," he said.

Gaffigan posts his gardening projects on Instagram. In a July post, he gives his followers a tour of his garden, where he grows onions, cucumbers, beans, and artichokes.

Gaffigan, whose stand-up special "The Skinny" is out on Friday, also said he uses Mounjaro to help him lose weight. Mounjaro is the brand name for Tirzepatide, a prescription drug used to treat type 2 diabetes and manage weight loss.

"Most of our lives we've been told, Just control your appetite. Just stop being a fucking pig," he said. "The reality is, we can't. Maybe our brains are a little wonky or whatever. I think that in some ways, the appetite suppressants are this justification for people who have compulsive eating, that they're not weak — that some of it can be fixed."

Since his doctor suggested taking the drug two years ago, Gaffigan has lost 50 pounds. "I feel good," he told People. "I'm just grateful because it's such a better life."

A representative for Gaffigan did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Sneaking more greens in your diet

A way to sneak more greens into your diet is to try the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your food is healthy, and you can be more flexible with the other 20%.

BI's Rebecca Harrington tried the rule on her salad in August last year. She sneaked treats like rice, potato chips, cheese, and breadcrumbs into her salad bowl.

"It's hard to eat perfectly all the time, but trying to make the vast majority of foods that you eat nutrient-dense, whole ones is generally going to be effective," she wrote.

Naomi Whittel, a nutrition expert and author of the wellness book "Glow15," previously told Business Insider that another hack to increase vegetable intake is to add a handful of spinach when you're heating up leftovers or making a smoothie.

"As vegetables increase in the diet, happiness might be a change that is noticed before specific physical changes in the body, so I always tell people to consider eating vegetables an investment in happiness," she said.