14 DAY TRIAL // Jason Alexander, the funnyman who became an international superstar for his part as George on “Seinfeld,” is now officially the latest spokesperson for Jenny Craig. Having dealt with weight issues his entire life, the star has decided that his new year resolution should be something that puts the focus back on his health, and has thus decided to drop 30 to 40 pounds with the program, he says for People magazine.
Alexander was once a spokesperson for KFC, but those days are now far back, he reveals. The first step towards sustainable and healthy weight loss has already been taken, he says, and he has “Seinfeld” and television in general to thank for that. In other words, he came to realize he needed to lose the extra weight after watching recent televised interviews of himself, while also looking back at the much-hyped “Seinfeld” reunion.
“It’s like someone’s clubbing me over the head it’s so obvious I should be doing this. It was a deadly combination of I’m fat and they work. I just got to a point where when I would look at the ‘Seinfeld’ reunion stuff or one of these other projects that I had done, I said, ‘I don’t like the way that guy looks. That guy is not attractive in any way, shape or form to me.’ It made me go, ‘Oh, yuck!’ Over the course of the nine years of Seinfeld, I can actually see my hairline go away and my waistline increase. One of them I can do nothing about; the other I can,” Alexander says about his decision to give Jenny Craig a try.
Though Jenny Craig spokespersons are mostly female, the funnyman doesn’t see the program, or any other weight loss plan for that matter, in this light. On the contrary actually, he’s hoping that his initiative of losing weight with professional assistance and even going public with such a personal detail of his life will inspire other overweight men to let go of their prejudices and give dieting a try. One thing that he won’t do, though, he says, is pose in a swimsuit for People magazine, as Valerie Bertinelli did a while back.
“It’s hard for me to think of the Jenny Craig program – or any weight loss program – as a female thing. I’m trying not only to do it for myself but I’m encouraging other guys to come on board and say we can do this. This will work for us, and we can do this and deal with the problem. If somebody goes, ‘Well, if George can do it, I can do it!’ – that’s great. Whatever it takes to get you heading in the right direction. If I’m it, great!” the actor explains.