Finding a Balance: Eminem Talks Getting Clean and Working Out

Suffering from an addiction can be an utterly debilitating thing — keeping you from socializing in normal settings and living a well-balanced lifestyle. And often times, it can have a serious effect on your body. For one rap superstar, this was a very true reality. Eminem, the 42-year-old rapper best known for his aggressive and over-the-top lyrics that both shock people as well as have them turning up their stereos, hit rock bottom when, in 2007, the successful star found himself in a very scary situation: overdosing on pills. "Slim Shady" recently told Men's Journal that during his addiction, he was "close to 230 pounds." He claimed that, though he is unsure of exactly how he gained so much weight, he believes that it may have been from the coating on the Vicodin and the Valium that he'd been ingesting for years, saying that the combination left a hole in his stomach, resulting in constant stomachaches. To alleviate the pain? The rapper says he was eating nonstop, and nothing but bad food. After his overdose, Eminem went to rehab to clean up his act, but once returning to normal life, he said he had to find a way to replace his addiction, so he took up running. [bctt tweet="Finding a Balance: Eminem Talks Getting Clean and Working Out"] "I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles in about an hour. Then I'd come home and run another eight and a half," Eminem says. "I started getting OCD about the calories, making sure I burned 2,000 every day. In the end I got down to about 149 pounds." Feeling like more of a hamster than a human, the rapper realized he needed to find a new way to get healthy. Eventually, he turned to workout DVDs to find the right balance, trying out Shaun T's Insanity and P90X and then Body Beast. Have you ever replaced an addiction with working out and taken it too far? How did you find that healthy balance? Source: ET Online