Now, at age 42, he is taking control of his weight, and the lessons he has learned are now making their way into the classroom.

“Basically, all my life I’ve been a heavy person,” he said.

Despite being involved in sports like track and field, Bennett said it was his love of food that kept him above the healthy weight range for his height.

At 5 feet 10 inches tall, Bennett weighed in at 302 pounds at his heaviest.

After arriving at MSU in 2003, Bennett decided it was time to make a change. While he had been exercising, he had not changed the way he was eating. After beginning to diet, by the fall 2005 semester he was down 15 pounds. But the temptations of the holiday season brought the pounds back.

One year later, it was a health scare that put Bennett back on track when his blood sugar level put him at risk for diabetes.

“In the fall of 2006, I was getting very close to diabetic level of blood sugar. I believe 126 is like the magic number that once you reach it you are considered diabetic, and as the doctor told me, once you’re there, there is no going back,” he said. “So I was really realizing, I am knocking on the door of diabetes here, and I have that family history of diabetes. There was one thing I could do: I could lose the weight.”

Bennett decided to change his eating habits by dieting.

“I was able to stop weight gain, but I wasn’t really losing any weight because I really wasn’t changing what I was eating,” Bennett said. “Lots of diets are out there, you hear a lot about these different kinds of things, so I kind of just pooled some of the things I liked about different diets together and kind of made my own and then decided to try it and stick with it.”

Bennett began cutting back on – but not eliminating – his carbohydrate intake, as well as his consumption of treats like soda and doughnuts. He added more raw vegetables and protein like chicken and fish, and makes sure to drink lots of water.

“It’s true what they say about portion control,” Bennett said.

While his tastes have not changed – he still enjoys pizza and burgers every now and then – he has learned to control how much of those foods he eats.

To date, Bennett is down 50 pounds.

Now the challenge is maintenance, and for that, exercise is key, and Bennett has developed a new strategy: not to focus on the number on the scale, but what he is capable of. In order to continue his success, he has a new challenge before him.

“Why not try to set a goal to run a mile in six minutes?” Bennett said.

The newfound strength he has obtained from training with weights, swimming, cycling and running, he said, will help in the process. His current time is eight minutes and 52 seconds, down from 11 minutes and 20 seconds at the beginning of the summer.

Time for change

It is this new mind-set that has given Bennett a new approach to teaching his class.

“I think that if we could see as a society maybe to look at this thing a little different instead of just seeing a number on a scale as being what determines how healthy we are, if we could instead view the answer to the question of how healthy I am is how far can I run and how fast can I run it. Focusing on some of the things that we can do rather than just thinking of a number,” he said.

He said he is able to better relate to his students, realizing that their struggles – his with weight and theirs with math – are not that different. He is now able to recognize the challenges they face, and has new empathy for them.

“They approach the semester as this long thing they have to get through,” Bennett said. “The thing is not to give up.”

The subject of math poses issues for many students.

Math professor William C. Brown said the difficulty can be avoided as long as students stay on top of their studies.

“Most students, if they are properly advised, do not have any difficulty passing a math course,” he said. “The ideas are technical and can be difficult, but at the lower level, I think the main issue students have is that they don’t do their homework.”

As director of undergraduate studies in mathematics for the past 32 years of his career, Brown said it is important to ask for help when needed.

“If you have any trouble doing the homework then you should seek help. There is really no secret to succeeding in math,” he said.

With 37 years at MSU, Brown said there also are certain qualities that make a good instructor.

“You have to be friendly and outgoing, of course, you have to be willing to help students, and of course you have to competent,” he said.

When it comes to those qualities, Brown said Bennett is all set.

“Now Eric Bennett didn’t need much help from us, he is good at it,” he said.

Communication is of utmost importance. Bennett said he encourages his students to ask questions despite being in a large lecture hall. He wants to continue developing a more hands-on, helpful relationship with them, incorporating more of what he has learned from his weight loss in the future.

“You have to combine the realism along with your dreams,” he said.

While consistency has been hard to maintain at times, especially with everyday stress and cravings, the results make the struggle worth it. Bennett said his cholesterol is down, and movement has become easier. He wants to see if the continued weight loss will allow him to go off his blood pressure medication as well.

What others saw

Sue Watson, a secretary in the statistics department, first met Bennett while working in the math department. When she saw him for the first time this semester, she noticed the changes in him immediately.

“I was walking into the building and I saw him and I was like, ‘Eric you look so different,’” she said. “He just looks so muscular now.”

And the changes have not been just physical.

“I think it has probably really made him feel good about himself. That takes so much discipline. I really think he’s a little more outgoing now, he just seems really positive and upbeat,” Watson said.

Physical and mental changes aside, Watson said he has always been a good teacher.

“I was at the front desk and students always wanted to get into his classes, they always filled up really quick,” she said. “He comes across to me as really caring about the teaching, really trying to do a good job. He’s a great guy.”

Jerry Swartz, president of the Lansing Schools Education Association, happened to notice a slimmer acquaintance at his 6:30 a.m. swim at the IM Sports-Circle pool.

“I said, ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight,’” Swartz said. “It’s been pretty remarkable, he’s done a nice job of taking care of himself.”

While the two had never had a conversation longer than a “Hello, how are you?” before that, it was his dramatic transformation that inspired the exchange.

Bennett shared his strategies with Swartz, who said he told Bennett to “keep it up.”

With his goal in sight, Bennett will keep pressing on – just as he tells his students. “This semester I am going to give it my best shot,” Bennett said.