Over the course of 11 months, Kay Adock has lost 143 pounds on the low-calorie, low-sodium Rice Diet in Durham. Photo Credit: TOM MENDEL THE CHRONICLE

Once “thin in her youth,” Adock began to pack on pounds in her mid-40s. Two injuries—one from a fall that crushed her arm and shoulder—incapacitated her for several months and only exacerbated her weight gain.

“Life just wasn’t a lot of fun,” Adock said. “I just went into depression and thought, ‘Well this is it. Life is over.’”

Obese, diabetic and virtually immobile, Adock tried every conventional diet available. When she made a final plea to her doctor for help, he recommended the Rice Diet Program in Durham.

Adock and her husband decided that she would try the medically-supervised program for one month. She moved from their home in Fuquay Varina, N.C., to the Quality Inn in Durham and devoted herself to every aspect of the diet, which includes a strict nutritional plan, motivational speakers, yoga and meditation sessions at the Rice House Clinic.

After the first month, Adock felt so empowered by her progress, she decided to keep going. One month turned into two, and two turned into 11.

So far she has lost 143 pounds.

“I figure, this is the way I have to live. This is a new way of life,” Adock said.

Every year, more than 4,000 dieters like Adock make the pilgrimage to a variety of diet centers in Durham in search of a new way of life.

The Bull City became known as the “Diet Capital of the World” in the 1930s after Duke kidney specialist Dr. Walter Kempner advocated treating various diseases with a healthy diet.

To alleviate hypertension, for example, Kempner prescribed a low-calorie, low-sodium plan consisting primarily of rice and fruit. It became known as the Rice Diet.

Kempner’s diet was effective in fighting hypertension, high blood pressure and diabetes-associated ailments, but it was the significant weight loss patients experienced that gave the program international distinction. Several celebrities, including Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation founder Colonel Harland Sanders, became Rice devotees.

The program split from Duke University in 2002 and now operates independently. Two other programs offering alternate diet plans have also developed in the area—the Structure House and the Duke Diet and Fitness Center. Each of the diet centers boasts a nurturing environment in which patients cultivate positive habits to replace their formerly destructive behaviors that led to weight gain and health complications.

Dr. Howard Eisenson, director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, noted that while nutrition and exercise are important, Durham’s diet havens are successful because they seek to affect the psychological aspect of weight loss. The clinics are “three internationally recognized, serious programs grounded in good science,” Eisenson said.

Susan Blech has spent over 18 months living in Durham on the Rice Diet. Once an intense bodybuilder, Blech turned to food to help her deal with overwhelming emotions associated with events affecting her mother, who became a quadriplegic after suffering a stroke when Blech was young.

Over several years, Blech gained 300 pounds.

Fearing a heart attack or stroke, Blech knew she needed a radical change from her hectic New York City lifestyle. After researching clinics on the Internet, she concluded that the Rice Diet was her best bet.

On the predominately vegetarian program—patients eat fish only once a week during the second phase of the clinical plan—Blech has shed over 220 pounds. She wants to lose 50 more.

Although Durham’s diet programs are expensive, reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars for some patients, both Adock and Blech believe it is money well spent. “When I get out of here, I’ll be completely broke, but what would I do with the money when I’m six feet under?” Blech said.

Patients and doctors agree that one of the primary reasons patients come to Durham is the sense of community built into the diet programs. “When you get into a group of people that are all taking care of themselves, it makes it easier for you to take care of yourself,” said Robert Rosati, director of the Rice Diet. “It’s hard to not be attracted to whatever the masses are doing.”

Both the Duke Diet and Fitness Center and the Rice Clinic say about 40 percent of their patients sustain long-term weight loss. But ounces and pounds are not the only thing they lose.

“Even though most people come here to lose weight, through the course of the program they see that it’s about more than that because they see people getting off their insulin, high blood pressure medicine being stopped, people that don’t need their walkers or oxygen tanks anymore,” Rosati said.

The average dieter stays a month at the center before returning to the real world of temptations and independence. Eisenson stressed that it is crucial to frame diets to prepare patients for pressures of society.

“We try from the very beginning to say to them, ‘Listen, this is not the real world. This environment has been designed to facilitate your education, to give you a success experience, to empower you and to motivate you, but you’re not going to be facing the challenges here that you are going to be facing out there. So let’s be realistic from the very beginning and plan for how to address those,’” he said.

Because of the programs’ restrictive aspects, doctors do not recommend that dieters try them on their own. Successful dieters who have come to Durham, however, say the programs produce very physical and emotional results.

“After I had lost 125 pounds [my husband] said, ‘You’ve lost what you were when I married you. But just don’t lose the girl I married,’” Adock said. “And I said, ‘No, no you won’t. She’s still here.’”