‘Dude, just tell the truth’: Mike Pompeo lost 90 lbs, but not the way he said he did

We asked weight loss experts, and people who have lost large amounts of weight themselves, whether it’s possible to lose 90 pounds in six months simply by eating better and hitting a humble home gym for half an hour five or six times a week. Their response? Absolutely not, almost certainly not, and hahaha.

That’s what Mike Pompeo, who represented Kansas in Congress before going on to become Donald Trump’s favorite cabinet member, told the New York Post that he did.

“I’ve done this for 20 years,” and never seen anything like that, said Micah LaCerte, who’s considered Kansas City’s top personal trainer. “He would have to be on a massive starvation diet,” probably taking in no carbs at all. And even then, “no way with only a half-hour workout. Ninety in six is unbelievable, especially for his age, unless he’s working out for hours every day. The numbers just don’t add up. Dude, just be honest. Mike, come on, man.”

While it may be theoretically possible, “it’s just not likely” without surgery, drugs or other extreme measures, says Al Rose, a longtime New York bodybuilder, trainer and coach. Even as a West Point-trained former soldier, Pompeo is “definitely being untruthful” claiming that DIY dietary changes and that amount of exercise alone could bring about such a drastic change in that length of time.

And losing that much weight that quickly, he said, isn’t healthy under any circumstances.

Rose, who at 65 gets up at 3:30 every morning to work out for several hours, said that during his daily workouts, he’s noticed Pompeo’s rapid weight loss during his occasional appearances on morning TV, and worried about him: “His face is sunken and his skin doesn’t look good. He’s gone from one extreme to the other. If someone sees him and is inspired” to eat healthier foods and work out more, Rose said, then of course that’s all to the good. But no one should expect or even try for such rapid results. “That message he’s spouting should not be marketed.”

Pompeo, who is 58, insists that his program has nothing to do with any thought of running for president, and also that it “was nothing scientific. There was no trainer, there was no dietician. It was just me,” switching from pumpkin pancakes to egg whites and turkey bacon when his family hits the IHOP. “You can do it as well,” he says.

One Kansan who lost 50 pounds over 18 months says no, you can’t. “Absolutely not. No way. And why lie about something so stupid?” On a topic that until he invited a reporter and photographer into his home gym was nobody’s business but his own.

LaCerte said that we’ll know in the next six to 12 months how the former secretary of state lost the weight, because if he did it by an extreme diet that cut all carbs, it won’t be sustainable. “Eventually, you want to eat a piece of bread when you go out to dinner, or have a glass of wine.” Weight lost that way takes lean muscle with it, he said, and then “the minute carbs hit your body again, you blow up” and are worse off than when you started.

Pompeo did tell the Post that “the truth is losing weight has been a lifetime struggle for me.”

Telling the truth has been, too.