Lose weight the way Anthony Anderson did: gradually

PHOTO: Anthony Anderson and his “black-ish” co-stars at the NAACP Image Awards in February. The show airs at 8:30 p.m. CDT on Wednesdays. | Arnold Turner/Invision/AP

If you watch Anthony Anderson in the ABC comedy “black-ish,” you might be wondering how he lost all that weight.

After all, TV viewers who run into an earlier version of Anderson on repeats of “Law & Order” — as I did last week — know he once was a much heftier man.

Anthony Anderson portrayed Det. Kevin Bernard

in “Law & Order” (shown in 2008). | Will Hart~NBC/AP

During an interview, the now 44-year-old Anderson told me his weight wake-up call was discovering he had type 2 diabetes, a disease whose symptoms he recognized since his late dad also suffered with it.

As luck would have it, he ran into “The Biggest Loser’s” Bob Harper while they both were working at NBC and asked for advice to take off the pounds. Harper, knowing Anderson’s busy schedule, told him to take it slowly and to begin simply by eating half of whatever he would normally have at every meal. Eventually, he has said in other interviews, that he now keeps a primarily plant-based diet.

At the time he was living in New York and didn’t have a lot of time for exercise. So he purchased a bike and would ride during breaks from filming. He discovered he really enjoyed the biking and started doing it on weekends, too.

He took it slow, but stuck with it. A Daily Mail story on Anderson says he’s lost 47 pounds and kept it off.

Sometimes when we want to get into better shape we embark on an extensive rehaul of our life and it’s too much to keep it going. We’ve got work and family and other obligations, and if our weight-loss plan is too complicated, we give up on it.

That’s why I liked this simple advice Harper gave Anderson. Very affordable and very doable. Give it a try.