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Tuesday, 18 October 2011 09:30

Written by Dan Gigler

Former Steelers great Alan Faneca clears a hole for Jerome Bettis during a 2005 Steelers' victory over Chicago in the muck and mire of Heinz Field.

As a nine-time Pro Bowler, Super Bowl champion, and member of the Steelers' all-time team it's not hyperbole to suggest that guard Alan Faneca left everything he had on the field during 13-years of NFL play.

And, weighing 80-less pounds than he did before his last game for the Arizona Cardinals, that literally seems to to be the case.

Retired from football and living in New Orleans with his wife and two children, Faneca returned to Pittsburgh this weekend to visit with old teammates at the Steelers practice facility on Friday, take in the game from the Heinz Field sidelines on Sunday, and to attend a benefit for the Glimmer of Hope Foundation.

Faneca appeared Monday at the Rivers Casino for the Legends for the Fan luncheon series, produced by 93.7 The Fan. Future events will include former Steelers Robin Cole and Andy Russell.

Hosted by Paul Alexander, the program was an hour-long interview on a wide-range of topics, including how Dermontti Dawson schooled him as a rookie, Big Ben proved him wrong, his chances at Canton, and post-football life (no big plans yet).

I was able to speak with Faneca briefly after the event for some more specific questions about his dramatic weight loss and other football-related topics ...

Faneca in his last game at Heinz Field

FANECA: My last weigh in was the last week of the regular season in Arizona and I was at 315, [and I was] 235 the last time I got on a scale last week. So 80 pounds.

Q: How did you lose it? Any particular diets or workouts?

FANECA: I haven’t touched a weight since I’ve been done playing. I did cardio. I built up to like an hour on – its basically an elliptical, but its called a Street Strider – and its like an outdoor elliptical on three wheels so you’re not stuck in the gym but you can go around the neighborhood on bike paths and stuff. I got one of those things and I built up to doing about an hour on that a day, and I wore a thing, it’s called a BodyMedia. I was at the gym and everybody was wearing them so I started looking into it and basically, it calculates the calories your burning – you wear it all day long – and it calculates the calories your burning, then you input what you’re eating so the goal is to eat less than what you’re burning. So I was burning a little over 4000 calories a day and I was eating about 2000 or a little less then 2000 calories a day.

The newly svelte Faneca, yesterday, at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.

FANECA: No, no, – I had it mapped out … I always used to eating meals all the time to keep the weight – I’d eat like 3 (1000 calorie) shakes a day and then three meals, so I’m eating like six, seven times a day so I was kind of used to that. I had little protein bars that I would eat between lunch and dinner and between breakfast and lunch, so I was never completely starving.

Q: That’s one of the biggest health issues in the country. Do you have any practical advice for people struggling to lose weight?

FANECA: I would say no matter what you’re doing to try and lose the weight you gotta get to a point where you see the weight loss. So many people try and lose the weight – it’s a different weight for every person, but you know -- 10 to 20 pounds –you got to get to that point where you’re like ‘aw man, my jeans are really loose’ or you see it in your face. You gotta get to that point where you get that taste of losing the weight. That was the one thing – I wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it fast. Not everyone is able to do that or has the mindset to do that I guess I was still in that football training kind of mode -- I couldn’t handle a diet if I only lost like two pounds a week, that was part of my thing too, and that’s the whole football side of things – but I think the thing is you have to get to a point where you see it and then you realize it instead of dieting for a month and you lose maybe 10 pounds and you don’t really feel it or see it then you kind of get discouraged.

You gotta get to that point where you see it and get that taste and your like OK, where is this gonna go if I can duplicate that, if I can double that? Then instead of climbing the hill, you’re rolling downhill.

Q: Do you feel better?

FANECA: Oh yeah. I feel great. My ligaments and joints appreciate every pound I’ve lost … just roughhousing with the kids and stuff, you know I don’t give the old man groan when I get up off the floor anymore. My body definitely appreciates it – we’re not doing good things to our body playing in the NFL for 13 years or how ever long you play. You gotta kind of reverse it somehow, someway.

Faneca leads the way for Hines Ward; both were drafted by the Steelers in 1998.

FANECA: No. I was fortunate enough to make all the Pro Bowls [in Honalulu], so the wife drags me to the place across the street to look at these condos and I’m like ‘this is great but not at this price’ … [but] the economy drops and the price drops to a really good price. We bought a place about three years ago and we’ve only been going out there in pieces when we can so this year we were like – we’re going for the summer and we’ll come back when school starts for my little girl, so we were out there for about seven weeks. It was a great way to retire and go out there and unwind.

Q: So it was a better place to spend August than, say, Latrobe?

FANECA: [smiles] Yes.

Q: The Steelers' line has struggled this season -- what advice would you give them, especially the young guys like Doug Legursky, Marcus Gilbert, and even Maurkice Pouncey?

FANECA: The one thing I’ve always told the young guys is you’re never done learning. I played 13 years I was still learning things in year 13. You just always need to be working on your craft, and eventually things start clicking, things start turning over. All of a sudden you’ve got that done, you start working on something else. A good friend of mine, Will Shields, who is going into the Hall of Fame, he used to always call it ‘you got something else in the tool box – pull out a tool and use it.’ So you’re always working on something and that’s the thing – you didn’t just get to the NFL, now you gotta stay in the NFL.

FANECA: Junior Seau was the smartest person I’ve ever played against. Like … just insane. Like the ball was coming here, and he’d go there – he was a lot like Troy, but at a linebacker. He would do whatever he needed because he was smart enough and knew what was going on just like Troy does, but he was closer to the ball so you just couldn’t trick, him you couldn’t fool him -- misdirection plays -- if I had to block him on a misdirection I said screw the misdirection because he wasn’t biting on it. He was an extremely smart guy. Wed always come off the field b----ing – we can’t run that play, he effin’ knows it. He was so smart. Him and troy are the same. He was just bigger.

Q: Will your alma mater LSU run the table?

FANECA: [long pause] … I dunno, its gonna be hard. I tell some of my buddies back home, we always do better when we’re just behind a little bit so we’re sitting on top so we have to see how we handle it.

Hat's off, jacket on? Faneca lost his helmet on this play against Philadelphia in 2004, but hopes to someday don a gold jacket after enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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