Larry Goldberg, 69; Dieting Pizzeria Owner Wrote Food Columns

Larry “Fats” Goldberg, 69, New York restaurateur, food writer and author who devised a system of “controlled cheating” to lose and keep off 175 of his 325 pounds, died Monday in his native Kansas City, Mo., of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Beginning in the 1960s, Goldberg started three restaurants in New York that he named Goldberg’s Pizzerias. He created his own recipe for pizza that was rated best in the city by New York magazine. A dedicated consumer of food who considered eating “entertainment,” Goldberg also wrote food columns for the New York Daily News.

But he may have gained his greatest fame for losing weight and keeping it off for more than 30 years. His friend, Calvin Trillin, wrote about the remarkable effort for the New Yorker magazine, and Goldberg described his struggle in several books and talks while repeatedly admitting that “dieting stinks.”

Among his books were “The Fats Goldberg Take It Off and Keep It Off Diet Program” in 1981 and “The New Controlled ChEATing Weight Loss and Fitness Program” in 1992.

Goldberg returned to Kansas City in the late 1980s after selling his New York restaurants, and briefly owned a pizzeria there. In recent years, he served as greeter for two popular Kansas City restaurants: Houston’s and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. In that role, he complained about the necessity of wearing ties, but he still entertained and enchanted diners with his tales of how he “lost a whole Goldberg.”