By Dayne Hudson
When you listen to the unique and unmistakable raps from Eminem, you don't need a detective to decipher than he may have used drugs before.
And now, the rapper has spoken out about how he beat drug addiction after leaving rehab weighing more than 100 kilograms, by pumping iron and running.
In 2007, Eminem was just over 102 kgs and entered rehab after being taken to hospital following an overdose of pills.
He had to get better, and quickly.
So he took to fitness, which included running 27km a day on the treadmill.
He claims apart from the obvious health benefits, the running also helped him sleep.
He dropped 37kg, finishing up at 67kg.
“I got an addict’s brain, and when it came to running, I think I got a little carried away. I became a f**king hamster,” he said.
“I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles (13.7km) in about an hour. Then I’d come home and run another eight and a half. I started getting OCD about the calories, making sure I burned 2,000 every day. In the end I got down to about 149 pounds (67kg). I ran to the point where I started to get injured. All the constant pounding from the running began to tear up my hip flexors.”
Then it was time to pump iron - taking to exercise DVDs from Shaun T's fitness programs.
"I need someone on the TV yelling to motivate me. Besides, some of this sh*t is entertaining,” Eminem said.
The rapper also opens up about his bodybuilding program: “The routine is pretty intense, too. The first time I did the legs, I couldn’t walk for two days.
“Now I’m doing arms one day, chest the next day, legs the next, and I’m still functioning throughout the day. And I can finally do it without pausing the DVD.
Eminem loves leg day!? The world is complete.
“I still hate pullups. They’re a motherf**ker, but I do them. I even fill out the log afterwards. I guess I’m pretty compulsive working out. I feel like if I step away from it for too long, if I have a crazy week and take a five-day break, it’ll be like starting over. I’m afraid that if it goes beyond that, I might lose the motivation.”
Eminem is no stranger to drug abuse; when he was mixing pills in 2005 was probably when he was at his worst.
“The doctors told me I’d done the equivalent of four bags of heroin … Had I got to the hospital about two hours later, I would have died,” he said.
“My organs were shutting down. My liver, kidneys, everything,” he said.
“They were gonna have to put me on dialysis. They didn’t think I was gonna make it. My bottom was gonna be death.”
And when he came off all the drugs, he says he was awake endlessly.
"I was literally up 24 hours a day for three weeks straight. And I mean, not sleeping, not even nodding off.”
Two of his albums, "Relapse" in 2009 and "Recovery" in 2010, give the listener an insight into his struggle to get off the drugs.
But it's great to see the lengendary rapper back on the straight and narrow, and into fitness too!
