Meat Loaf has vowed to go on a diet and get himself fit after collapsing at a concert last month.
Meat Loaf, real name Michael Lee Aday, was hospitalised with dehydration after falling to the floor at the gig in Edmonton, Canada, resulting in the cancellation of a number of tour dates.
The Bat Out of Hell musician puts his on stage struggles down to being unable to keep fit due to a series of debilitating injuries, but is now on a diet and has signed himself up to an intensive fitness program.
“I’m okay,” he told Britain’s Classic Rock magazine. “Weak. I’ve gotta go to physical therapy. I had back surgery and knee surgery within the last two years, and the knee surgery failed, so I haven’t been able to work out on tour.”
He added, “So I’m going to acupuncture, physical therapy, and a trainer, starting Monday for four days a week, an hour and a half each session.”
Although he currently has no live shows scheduled, the singer is expected to soon make an announcement about rescheduling the shows cancelled in the wake of his ordeal and is set to visit Britain to promote his new album Braver Than We Are, which is released across Europe in September and the 68-year-old star hopes he will have shed the pounds by the time he gets to the U.K., noting, “I’m in the UK from August 28 to September 10 and then I come to New York for a week and I go to LA for a week, for promo, then I’m coming home to rest for four weeks and do more physical therapy, plus I’ve been on a diet and I’ve lost getting close to 20 pounds now.
“So before August 28 I will lose another 15 before I get to do promo in the U.K. So we’re trying to watch out for my health and make it easier onstage.”
Speaking about his terrifying on stage collapse Meat Loaf explains that he was feeling unwell before the gig and had been drinking Pedialytes, an electrolyte solution in a bid to enable himself to perform.
“We were doing really well in Canada, until I got sick and I got dehydrated and then I had to drink what they call Pedialytes – gallons of them,” he revealed, adding that he fell unconscious during his stage collapse.
“I knew I was about to go and I didn’t want to just fall and hit. I was getting really dizzy and I’m going, ‘Oh my god, I think I’m gonna faint.’ So I didn’t want to stand there until I just fainted and cracked my skull open.
“So I just said, ‘Okay, I’m going to kinda go down.’ But about half-way down I went completely out, and I didn’t wake up until I got to the hospital.”
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