The Rebuilding of Remar Sutton

By Anastasia Toufexis

Hi Mom,

I'm writing this while lolling around a pool in the Bahamas. Yes, I know you think I've got a cushy job. But that's nothing compared with Remar Sutton's. You know -- the fat, bald 45-year-old guy who decided to chuck it all, move to an island and dedicate a year of his life to becoming a hunk. He's been chronicling his progress in a series of wry letters appearing in scores of newspapers, but maybe you haven't been reading them. My friends find his quest both repellent (classic male vanity) and intriguing (classic male fantasy). To me, it seems like just about the most skillful bit of packaging I've yet to see, and the craziest. What kind of grown man does something like this in public?

Remar's book Body Worry (you didn't think there was a book in this?) has just been shipped by Viking to bookstores at $17.95 a copy, so I convinced my editors that we should check out this ego trek at the scene of his make-over haven in Freeport. (By the way, Mom, how's the weather back home?) "Let's have dinner," said Remar when we spoke on the phone. "But how about a bike ride first?" I blanched but dutifully headed over to his modest three- bedroom house. Initial impression: Georgia gentleman, soft-spoken, slight drawl, impeccable manners -- he lowered the bike seat for me. Yes, yes, about the body. Well, I have to say I was impressed. In his "before" pictures he resembled a bloated puffer fish. At 6 ft. 1 in., he tipped the scale at 201 lbs., a lot of it jelly around his 43-in. belly. And now, after walk-jogging 150 miles, biking 1,026 more and weight lifting 3 million lbs., the man is 163 lbs. with the pared-down look of an ascetic, an image heightened by the monkish fringe of hair but destroyed by the gleeful colors he wears.

Remar is not your average retiring 45-year-old. While we tooled around on the bikes, he told me about earlier successes as an advertising executive and promoter who had already parlayed one personal experience (owning an auto dealership) into a book called Don't Get Taken Every Time, which is now in its 17th printing. He's also no novice on the celebrity circuits, both the Hollywood and social fast tracks. Still, when he got the idea of renovating Remar, book publishers didn't nibble, though his old buddy George Plimpton was encouraging. "He suggested I could be in a little worse shape, and began pouring taller drinks and urging me to eat more fatty meals and to stay up late," Remar says. "He also thought a little stroke might be nice."

Plimpton meant to be funny, of course, but the medical and exercise experts on the advisory Body Worry committee didn't laugh when they saw the results of Remar's screening physical. Turned out that he had mild heart disease; his lungs and liver were also impaired, probably from heavy smoking and drinking. Remar's muscle odyssey suddenly expanded into a serious quest for health. He'd already stopped his three packs a day. In January 1986, he began his new regimen by quitting the booze. For the first three months, he and his personal trainer weighed and recorded every bite and sip he took. "I was scared to eat chocolate cake and thick steak, afraid my blood would rot," Remar remembers. He also went overboard on his exercise program. In addition to weight lifting, biking and jogging, there was a backyard aerobics class that friends were inveigled into joining. He was so intense that he promptly injured his right shoulder.

Gradually, he says, "I came to realize that the key is not to do anything radical but to modify." Today he eats lots of chicken, lobster and conch, usually simply prepared but sometimes fried. Also fruits and salads. He sips watered-down Crystal Light, but has an occasional glass of white wine. He runs briefly or bikes in the morning, takes a nap after lunch, goes to the body- building gym for an hour and a half in the afternoon. He swims and scuba dives -- strictly for pleasure. "It's not worth being healthy if you're going to be miserable," he muses. His moderated pace paid off. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, founder of the Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, first saw Remar in December 1985 and estimated his biological age as ten years above his actual one. Now, says Cooper, "he's got the body of a man ten years younger, externally. Internally, he's five years younger."

& Sweet words for Remar. Chunk to hunk probably also equals health to wealth. Though he sank $100,000 into his remake for consults, travel and just plain fun, he stands to recoup much more. Movie rights have been sold, lecture tours planned. He's going to continue a column for the Washington Post, and a second book is already under way. Remar seems to be getting off on some other delights too. A few days ago, I watched him in the culmination of the year, the ultimate version of what he calls his Swoon Walks.

After pumping iron to flush his muscles with blood, Remar slipped into a skimpy orange Speedo, donned a straw hat and strutted the beach before a line of spring-break beauties, who beamed and clapped in approval. Consensus on the flutter factor: 8 or 9, which is pretty amazing for someone who justifiably rated his hunk index at 0 a year ago. Even the college guys hooted and howled in agreement. An older fellow, Philip Finn, who was on vacation from Plains, Pa., was also awed, but confided to me, "What I'm interested in watching is whether he keeps it off." So am I. Then again, I wonder if Remar will become too thin, too rich, too famous? Hmm, Mom, any advice on how I can persuade the editors to send me back down here for a follow-up?

Love,

Your daughter