Mayor Cory Booker's Let's Move Challenge
CHETRY: You know, that's not video of NFL training camp. That's Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker. He put himself to work during last week's blizzard. In fact, he was pushing cars, shoveling snow. Actually responding to calls for help on Twitter.</s>HOLMES: But even by the mayor's own admission, that was the first exercise he had done in a while over the past. The former Stanford football player put on a little weight. You know what we're going to ask him specifically - he's here. We're going to ask you how much weight you actually put on? Yes, Mr. Mayor, welcome, first of all. How much did you put on?</s>MAYOR CORY BOOKER (D), NEWARK: I went from about 230 pounds in 2009 to being this year at 295 pounds was my high. So right now, this morning, I got - I was 284. I'm starting to come down. But it's really a bad situation to be a leader, to be Michelle Obama's co-chair of our national effort and to be sitting there telling kids you need to eat healthy and exercise when I'm not exercising and eating chocolate chip cookie dough and ice cream late at night.</s>HOLMES: Did she get on you about that?</s>BOOKER: No, she didn't. When she was just in Newark and the shame of it was, that day I still remember going to find a suit that actually fit me because I had gotten so big. So you know,</s>CHETRY: We had a chuckle (ph) out of your - what you wrote about it. Because it was very candid. I mean, we've all heard these moments but you said, you're sitting there with the first lady. And you said "my stomach was still trying to digest the French fries and the cookie dough from the night before. I hadn't exercises for more days than I could remember. I simply couldn't help feeling the shame of falling so short of my own words to the children." And it's interesting because this is sort of where we start in January with our resolutions and our proclamations to be better. But why is it that we fall so far off the wagon around the holidays?</s>BOOKER: I think that what we do is we make promises to ourselves but what I'm trying to do by example, I'm trying other people to do it is make public commitment. You know, I've got over a million Twitter followers now and Facebook followers. I want all ourselves to put ourselves out there and hold each other accountable because America is going down a very dangerous road. If you're obese, you have much more costly lives. Shorter lives. Health problems. Obese children do worse in cool. This is really undermining the very core of our country. So I think that, you're right, willpower is a hard thing to muster. And I had a lot of great excuses. I was running a job around the clock. I had lots of stress. But at the end of the day if we're not taking care of ourselves, we can't take of our families, our communities or do our jobs as effectively.</s>HOLMES: That was going to be my next question. I don't want to call you lazy. It's hard to call any public servant lazy. You guys keep heck a schedule so what was it? You just started eating? You said you had excuses there? What did you do?</s>BOOKER: Anybody who was an executive in government from last year, from White House, state house, city halls, it was the most stressful year that any of us went through. Frankly, for our constituencies it's a most stressful year. So it was intense. We had a number of crises. You know, you don't think about what you eat when you're just ordering pizza, you're just grabbing what there is and we get these terrible habits. I'm one of those guys who comes home, and this is what I write about on my blog on Facebook - who plop in front of the TV at 2:00 in the morning, not feeling that I can sleep and just eat food mindlessly as I watch TV. So these are the kind of habits that I'm committed to breaking.</s>CHETRY: You said you want to reach it by your birthday, April 27th, you want to get back down to your goal weight of 230. What are some big changes that you're putting into, besides shoveling snow?</s>BOOKER: Well, you know, most of my days, I'm going to put out a blog of what I've done. So I've cut out TV. I'm not watching TV while I'm eating at all anymore.</s>CHETRY: Except for the morning cable shows.</s>BOOKER: This is the deal I made to myself. I'll only watch TV when I'm on my stationary bike.</s>HOLMES: When are you on the bike?</s>BOOKER: What's that?</s>HOLMES: When are you on the bike? 6:00 to 9:00 Eastern?</s>BOOKER: Exactly.</s>HOLMES: All right. Just checking.</s>BOOKER: You know, I've given up that and I'm making sure that I plan my meals out before, you know, because that stops me from just grabbing what there is. I've already thought this out. If my schedule as mayor is planned out for everything else if my professional life is important to my health, I should plan that out as well. So a lot of different secrets - well, not secrets, thoughts that I'm putting up on Facebook every day and the great thing is the response. I've had thousands of people reaching out, saying they're going to join me for this Let's Move Challenge, also giving me their tips. We, as a country, we can only go as far as we're willing to take each other. And so I'm hoping we can be much more mutually supportive because we have become a very obese nation and that is ridiculous for a country this strong and this great to allow us to get this bad.</s>HOLMES: One more thing here. We talk about the weight here. And we kind of joked about the first workout you had was out there shoveling. And that got a lot of attention, no doubt. But when you juxtapose what was happening in your town, seeing a mayor out there all hours of the night, literally responds to Tweets, showing up at people's homes to help out versus the criticism here in New York, also in New Jersey with the governor there, as well. How did you see how other officials were handling their communities as you were handling yours in that way?</s>BOOKER: Well, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is probably one of my mentor mayors. He's one of the best that's out there. And we didn't get it perfect in Newark, either. What we did do well, though, was our communication strategies. And it was great to have a mobile command center, as oppose to staying where I usually sit, was in City Hall and trying to work it out. I said, you know what, let's get into the streets, let's move around. And with BlackBerrys and other devices I could command sort of the operations, as well as most importantly respond to residents. And actually, being out there, for me, it affected me seeing people who were trapped without everything from diapers to people that needed to get to their diabetes services.</s>CHETRY: Right. And, in fact, in New York they just -- the fire commissioner let go of the head of EMS because of that slow response time. I mean, do you think that in New York City, in particular, that people should lose their jobs over the response to the storm?</s>BOOKER: Well, this is life or death. And folks don't understand that. Storms are life and death. And you got to get it right. We had a lot of snow-post (ph) mornings. We had a long meeting at City Hall just yesterday looking at what we did wrong and we helped people to account for it. Because if you're a resident stuck in your house in need of vital services and those don't arrive, there should be accountability. And so I don't blame anybody here in New York or in Newark, frankly, for holding their employees accountable for providing those services.</s>HOLMES: Well, congratulations on those efforts. A lot of people gave you high marks for what you were doing out there and the video we saw. So, congratulations on that. And good luck. You look good. You don't look like you're 284 --</s>BOOKER: If you let me, I'll come back in April and show you the results.</s>HOLMES: Of course, you can come back.</s>CHETRY: We'd love to.</s>HOLMES: Thanks so much. Good luck with that.</s>CHETRY: We won't get you a birthday cake. We'll get you some carrots and hummus or something, right?</s>BOOKER: Sounds good. Sounds very good.</s>CHETRY: Mayor Cory Booker, thanks.</s>HOLMES: Thanks so much.</s>CHETRY: Well umbrellas required down south, absolutely, they're getting hit. Plus, more snow is heading our way. Rob Marciano is going to have the forecast for us. Forty-seven minutes past the hour.