Frank Bruni delivered sharp-tongued reviews over his five years as a restaurant critic for the New York Times but he did it after battling a food obsession that he describes as being like a drug addiction.

He outlines his battle which predates his food critic years in his memoir Born Round: The Secret History of a Full Time Eater.

"I hit bottom in my 30s," he said Tuesday in an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs radio show.

"My worst fears all came true … I was wearing size 42 pants, I weighed 275 pounds … I hadn't gone out on a date in five years," Bruni said.

After coming to the realization that he needed to turn his life around, Bruni managed to do so, establishing an exercise schedule and losing the weight he wanted to.

But when he got a job as a restaurant critic it affected his more healthy relationship with food, since he was eating at and reviewing some of the worlds' best restaurants. However, he earned a reputation as a straight-talking and trusted critic.

"I had to eat a certain amount each day. All I could do was cut my portions off at a certain point and exercise a lot — and we've all been told that those are the best methods for weight loss anyway," explained Bruni.

Bruni said he had to direct his energy to being more discerning about individual dishes and avoid the intake of large quantities of food.

Went undercover

As an undercover critic, the need for anonymity at restaurants was important, so Bruni made sure that restaurateurs never knew he was coming.

"I used hundreds of pseudonyms over the years, changing them all the time so that … it wouldn't be on the books for my next visit. I used fake phone numbers, I called from phones that had blocked call-back numbers ... So that at the very least when I walked into a restaurant if I was recognized it was a surprise," said Bruni.

Now that Bruni's anonymity has ended he is doing media appearances for his new book.

Born Round is a personal memoir about his history of disordered eating and his career as a critic that was published in August by Penguin.

"Being able to show my face if I want to feels very liberating," said Bruni.

"A lot of people struggle hard to forge better relationships with food and I thought that the only way to speak with them would be if I could be extraordinarily candid and tell my own story," he said.

Bruni is making appearances in a bookstore tour throughout the U.S. this month. He will also appear on the Colbert Report and on Comedy Central.