I Thought Vegan Was A Planet

andquot;What happens when Tony Soprano meets Deepak Chopra? Thatand#39;s how some people have described my journey. Iand#39;m not so sure. I might throw some Woody Allen in there and a dash of Hunter S. Thompson.andquot; So says Frank Ferrante of his amazing journey from morbid obesity and drug addiction to vibrant health and happiness. At 54 years old, Ferrante was the least likely candidate for a major personal transformation. He thought that andquot;veganandquot; was a planet. Wellness was not in his vocabulary, and he couldnand#39;t be bothered with self-help. He was also, however, for those very reasons the best candidate for a major personal transformation. He weighed close to 300 pounds and suffered from a slew of issues that were his unhappy legacy as an ex-junkie and ex-alcoholic. They included hepatitis C, chronic fatigue, joint pain, respiratory issues, depression, suicidal thoughts, and a libido that had gone into early retirement. One day, he stumbled into a place called Cafand#233; Gratitude a vegan raw food restaurant run by three 20-something hipsters. Unbeknownst to him, theyand#39;d been tshinking about finding a fat guy, filming him on a raw food diet, and making a documentary that would be the polar opposite of Super Size Me. Ferrante was looking for something, anything, to create a shift in his life. As he says, andquot;Like zillions other people, I was also hungry not so much for food, but for love.andquot; Never mind that he was old enough to be the boysand#39; father or that heand#39;d ridiculed the New Age herd for years he accepted them pretty much on the spot as his new andquot;transformational cheerleadersandquot; and began a redemptive odyssey that changed every single aspect of his life. In his book I Thought Vegan Was a Planet, he writes about the experience of being a subject of their documentary movie May I Be Frank, but also what happened next, post-transformation: he found love again.