Eight years ago, Arash Hashemi found himself in a not-uncommon situation: He was doing well at work, finding money and success on the corporate path, but wondering Am I truly happy? For Hashemi, who was thriving in the office but not in his personal life, the question was rooted in his weight. His self esteem plummeted as he put on pounds; to continue going on that way, as he puts it, would have been a life sentence.
When Hashemi, now 38, finally decided that he was going to lose weight, for real, he created the Instagram account Shred Happens. It now boasts over four million followers. A few years ago, Hashemi founded Kaizen Food, makers of the high-protein, low-carb pasta and rice that have infiltrated your local grocery store. Today, he drops a new cookbook, Shred Happens: So Easy, So Good. The practical, nutritious recipes are made with the vibrant flavors that Hashemi says allowed him to shed dozens of pounds.
Of course, losing weight wasn’t quite as simple as that makes it sound. Hashemi had to power through the fad diet tsunami of the early aughts and accept the fact that results never come right away. Eight years later, he’s learned that any path to weight loss should be enjoyable, along with other insights like nobody wants to be the sweatiest guy in the room and there’s nothing wrong with a margarita every now and then.
GQ: Can you walk me through the story of leaving your job to not only focus on weight loss and document your journey?
Hashemi: I think my story really begins a little before that. I’m from an immigrant family. I’m the only one in my extended family born in the US. My parents came here from the Middle East for my dad to go to school to get his doctorate. I was born here, but we moved back to Iran, and then to Canada, then back to the US. My parents were always hustling, just trying to make ends meet, working multiple jobs, working late.
For me, very early on, food became that source of stability. I’d seen ads for all this fast food—Dairy Queen, Big Macs, Whoppers—on TV. When I didn’t have anything to do, that kind of became my escape mechanism. As I grew up, that kind of dependence—really, that emotional attachment to food—continued. Ultimately, this led to me growing to be quite big. For my prom, I remember having to get a special-sized suit. I couldn’t go to JCPenney or Macy’s or wherever. It was a size 58 men’s suit. I don’t even know what size pants. It was probably like a 46 or 48. I slowly put on weight during college. Long story short, I became about 350 pounds at my highest level.
As I continued in the corporate world, I was gaining a lot of responsibility. I was on the fast track at GE, doing really well. I was a great leader for the business, but I wasn’t being a great leader for myself. In 2017, I just looked to my wife, who also happened to work at GE at the time, and I said, “Look, I’ve got to make a change, because if I don’t do this now, this is going to be a life sentence.” I was really unhappy. I was miserable, I had pre-diabetes, I had high triglycerides, high cholesterol, I was just tired all the time. I said, “You know what? I’m going to quit, focus on eating right.” I put this incredible goal in front of me of competing in an Ironman even though I didn’t know how to swim. I could barely run a minute, let alone the 26 miles. I didn’t really have the athletic ability. That’s really what started my process.
So, at your biggest, you were around 350 pounds?
The last time I stepped on a scale was 326 pounds. I definitely put on some weight after that, but at 326, I just stopped getting on the scale. I was like, this is not going well. I was just so unhappy and frustrated. I remember I really couldn’t make eye contact when I was talking to people. I was sweating profusely all the time. I just didn’t feel good. This is despite being on a lifetime of diets growing up. I’d always do that next big thing to try to lose weight very quickly. I’d stick to it for maybe three, four days, and I wasn’t seeing that big movement, so I’d immediately throw in the towel and say it didn’t work. At some point during college, I did lose a bunch of weight, but then as I got into the corporate world, every year, I started gaining 20 pounds here and there.
Was this in the Atkins and South Beach Diet era?
Oh, you name it, I’ve tried it. Just eat eggs, only eat apples. The Cabbage Soup Diet, Jenny Craig, the Zone, South Beach, Weight Watchers. In high school I used to go to those Weight Watchers meetings with the weekly weigh-ins and all that. It was on Wednesdays, I remember, at 4:00 pm. I’d just do anything possible starting on that Tuesday night to kind of game the system, like, “How do I show a loss this week?” I lost a couple of pounds at the beginning and then it just never worked. Listen, all those diets can be great. Whether you do carnivore, keto, plant-based, Atkins, any of those diets that I just mentioned, I think that the main point is consistency. For me, I think I was forced to do something I wasn’t excited about. That ultimately led to it failing. I don’t think any of those diets had anything bad about them. It was just that I wasn’t excited. I wasn’t really into it, and so therefore, I didn’t stick with it.
I’ve gotta say, I’ve never heard of the only-eat-apples diet. I feel like that’s what a horse would eat.
[laughing] I think the horse would want a little bit more variety than that too.
