Terrell Moody (back) introduced
Deen to Coach Carter (middle.) All
three remain close friends and share
a passion for a healty lifestyle.
Jui-Jitsu Coach Michael
Sergi has not only been been
instrumental on Deen’s journey
to getting in shape, but also
influential in his lifestyle change.
EVENTUALLY, HE WAS READY TO TACKLE THAT
FIGHT, AND CARTER AND SERGI WERE ON THE
FRONT LINES WITH HIM, EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T
KNOW IT. BOBBY KNOWS HE WOULDN’T HAVE
BEEN SOBER THESE PAST TWO YEARS – AND HE
MIGHT NOT BE ALIVE – IF NOT FOR THE BOND
HE HAS WITH HIS TRAINING PARTNERS
been missing, and it became an essential part of
his identity. Through exercise, he changed his
relationship with food and branded himself as “the
healthy one” in the famous culinary family, leading
to his own show on Food Network. “Not My Mama’s
Meals” had a successful four-season run highlighting
Bobby’s healthier recreations of Paula’s recipes that
were dripping with Southern comfort.
“I still love fried chicken and collard greens and
cornbread and peach cobbler and sweet tea. Love
it,” Bobby says. “But you have to have a balance.
Food and exercise are medicine, and if you begin to
exercise your body, you’ll gain a new relationship
with food.”
Now Bobby credits that relationship with helping
him guide his mother through her own dietary
struggles. Paula was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes
in 2012, and Bobby has used his own transformation
to aid his mother in making one of her own.
“I feel like I’m adding years to my mother’s life, in
a roundabout way, by knowing Sam,” he says.
Other demons were more difficult to conquer.
Bobby’s father, Jimmy Deen, battled alcoholism
for much of his life – though he’s now clean and
sober – and Paula has talked openly about the
sometimes crippling anxiety that plagued her for
two decades.
Bobby inherited a tendency for both.
Just a few months into his jiu-jitsu training,
Bobby tore a groin muscle, which took a year to
recover from physically – and far longer to rebound
from mentally. For months, he would only train
privately with instructor Michael Sergi, who urged
him to come back to class.
After the lessons, Bobby would drink heavily as
self-treatment for the fear and anxiety that roiled
beneath the surface.
“I was headed in the same direction as my
dad,” Bobby says. “I cultivated a serious drinking
problem.”
Eventually, he was ready to tackle that fight, and
Carter and Sergi were on the front lines with him,
even if they didn’t know it. Bobby knows he wouldn’t
have been sober these past two years – and he might
not be alive – if not for the bond he has with his
training partners. He continues to work out with
Carter every afternoon in the small gym in the back
of the Boys Club, and he recently competed in his
first jiu-jitsu tournament in Charlotte.
“These are the things that hold me accountable
and give me positivity,” he says. “It fills that void.”
But he’s still searching for more. His latest
addiction is guitars – he has been collecting them for
years, and now he’s learning to play.
“Positivity, man. I’ve got to fill my hours up,”
Bobby says. “If I don’t fill them up with positive stuff,
I’ll get down to bad stuff, and that manifested itself
in a lot of different ways – with women, with alcohol.
I’ve been a bad dude. I’m a much better man at 47
than I was at 27.” •
JANUARY / FE B RUARY 2018
37