When the 2005 legislative session ended, Rep. Tom O’Halleran, R-1 began an exercise and no-fat diet regimen to lose weight. It worked — he dropped 38 pounds in a little more than three months — “before I knew I was sick,” he said.

“Because of the exercise, I felt some weakness in the legs and I didn’t know what it was, so the doctors figured it out for me,” Mr. O’Halleran said.

On Sept. 1, the now 60-year-old lawmaker underwent a non-emergency quadruple heart bypass after his doctor discovered the blockages during an exam for another medical problem. He has since lost four more pounds through swimming, treadmill exercise and avoiding fatty foods.

“I haven’t got on any of those radical diets,” he said. “I feel so much better.”

Last August, House Minority Leader Phil Lopes, D-27, had a stent placed in a blocked coronary artery and in September, he had three more stents inserted.

A medical stent is a wire mesh tube that props open a blood vessel.

If the state’s 90 legislators fit into recent statistics, more than half are overweight or obese. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 57.1 percent of Arizona adults fall into those categories.

Lawmakers answered questions about their eating and exercise habits in an Arizona Capitol Times e-mail questionnaire.

“I try my best to watch the kind of foods that I eat and could certainly incorporate more exercise into my lifestyle,” Rep. Leah Landrum Taylor, D-16, said. “I never had a weight problem and the only time I gained quite a bit of weight was during my pregnancy and I worked through exercise and watching what I ate to get the baby weight off. It took about nine months to get to my ideal weight goal.”

House Health Committee Chairman Doug Quelland, R-10, says he must watch what he eats because he has high cholesterol. Mr. Quelland is an avid cyclist and is known to bike from his Phoenix home to the Capitol.

Fresh off Army training, Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-30, came to the 2006 session at the same fighting weight, but with more muscle and less fat, he said. The freshmen legislator works with a trainer, lifting weights three times a week and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and kick boxing.

“It’s really a good workout,” he said of kick boxing, “but I don’t really do it to work out — it’s to avoid getting kicked.” Mr. Paton added that kick boxing helps relieve frustrations in the Legislature.

Obesity plan

The Department of Health Services is working under a plan to combat obesity and in December, announced a $1 million project that calls for state, local and medical community efforts toward prevention, early detection and treatment of the four leading disease-related causes of death in Arizona: heart disease, cancer, lung disease and stroke.