Pictures ...

Well, yet another installment of pictures worth 1000 words is up from Jimmy Moore.  I've been criticized for posting pictures of health and diet advocates and commenting on their looks particularly in regards to how well they appear to be aging.  Some of that criticism is fair.  Because aging and looks are largely genetic, and I've acknowledged this many times.  When one factors in photoshopping and cosmetic/surgical means of altering one's makeup, and it is becoming increasingly difficult these days to compare oneself with what is considered "normal" aging, etc.  If I'm ever on TV, I want Hillary Clinton's makeup artist from the 2008 primary debates on my team (and the best Spanx out there)!  Still, although I've certainly not lead a healthy life diet-wise for many periods during  my adulthood, my genes have been good to me and I consider myself blessed in that regard.   So Jimmy decided to add to the apparent Facebook pile on of one Gillian McKeith with this comparison of two similarly aged women.

Honestly ... does this tell you a darned thing about how different diets alter one's aging?  I must say that having been considerably more overweight in my life, my  remaining curves -- though  I'm no fan of my chin remnants (my neck is not fat, that is the odd pose in the cropped photo), my remaining cheek pudge contributes to a youthful look.  There's an unfortunate thing many of us women (men too?  to be honest I don't notice much ...) face as we age, and that is that at some point, what was svelte can translate to the look of being frail and declining.   So my immediate reaction seeing these two pictures juxtaposed was that it was a ridiculous comparison to begin with.  Can we please compare something more appropriate?  Some Gillian:

From Wikipedia, date unknown

2009

2010

2011

2009

Clearly, depending on light, makeup, etc., Gillian is showing some signs of age.  But how about that picture of Nigella?  It's likely old, and touched up.

2010

2011

2011

So ... clearly Nigella has put on some pounds over the years ... eating meat, butter and desserts.  Commenter Andrea had this to say to Jimmy:

Jimmy, I don't like that McKeith bashing all over the internet. I don't want to use the same bullshits Tactics as my opponents. Lawson? Photoshop, Lighting, Makeup. Botox?

Blisstree:

Dear Facebook Friends: Please Stop Sharing This Female-Bashing Gillian McKeith vs. Nigella Lawson Photo

http://blisstree.com/look/nige...

The blisstree link is interesting.   First, it shows a slightly more appropriate comparison of pictures between the two (although the Nigella pic is likely dated)

We have a little more information here ... Nigella Lawson also smokes and drinks!  Is the take-home message then that smoking and drinking are healthy for one's aging process?  Will Nigella become the poster girl for how smoking doesn't lead to premature aging?  Jimmy quips back:

Fair enough. But that doesn't explain the Ornish-Sisson comparison though.

Hmmphh.  Comparing Sisson to Ornish is ridiculous, but I'll get to that another day.  Does he reconsider his part in perpetrating this nonsense?  Did he even read the blisstree piece?  Does he care?  Eh ....  Still, one wonders what his "friends" must think when THEY look in the mirror.  Or many many of Jimmy's female readers for that matter.  It would not be so bad if he weren't looking so old himself lately, though he just turned 40.  Let's look at just one prominent low carber.  Dr. Mary Vernon

 date unknown, 5 years + old?

2003

2011

Here's a more recent video of Vernon.  To be fair, she's closer to 60 years old now, but the 2003 picture would be comparable to Lawson & McKeith.

In this video she claimed that she lost 35 lbs when she went LC 13 (or 14, I'm too lazy to relisten) years ago and has remained the same size since (a claim I find questionable but it could just be the picture angles).  I'm sure Andreas Eenfeldt, who defended her appearance in this video on his blog, wouldn't have such nice things to say about this woman if he only saw the 2003 picture and knew nothing of who the woman was.

So ... back to Nigella Lawson. A beautiful woman by almost anyone's standards, even at her more recent higher weight.   She's ... um ... also blessed with the predisposition to packing on the pounds in a proportional manner that tends to be pleasing to the menfolk ;-)   In any case, I'm not sure why Jimmy would feature her anyway. Yes, she eats meat and butter.  But, apparently, she is known for her decadent desserts ... and not low carb versions either. So in addition to the alcohol & tobacco, there's no evidence she's a low carber. And, one might fairly make the case that, while McKeith is slender, Lawson has been prone to gain weight. Indeed, even watching the amount of food TV that I do, I was only vaguely familiar with the name so had to do a little research on who exactly we were talking about here.  More recently Nigella has been the topic of the gossip rags for her ballooning weight which I quickly discovered by Googling her name ... that burka-bathingsuit pic is all over the place and there are many versions of it (including one where she's walking next to a bikini clad friend and a view from behind). There are also pictures showing a belly bulge of the non-preggers variety from her most recent cooking show. Which is neither here, nor there, but if you're going to post pictures on the internet and draw comparisons, it would have been more honest of the originator of the graphic to use current, comparable pictures. Still -- Nigella, sexy goddess in the kitchen, was suffering from weight-related bad PR moreso than looking excessively aged for her years. 

Why am I going on about this?   Well, two reasons.    First, regardless of her youthful, attractive appearance, over the past few years Nigella gained considerable weight (menopause?).  If you're going to highlight eating butter as a plus, and point to the pictures as proof this is anti-aging or somesuch, you have to be consistent and not take butter off the hook for her considerable weight gain.   Anyone watch Hot in Cleaveland in my audience??  Valerie Bertinelli looks younger than Jane Leeves (and Wendy Malick, but that's not fair as Malick is 10 years older than them).   Clearly Nigella still looks younger than Gillian ... but could her weight be a plus here?  Well, early in 2011, Nigella thought so, as this article relates:  Nigella Lawson: losing weight would age me 10 years.  Featuring a pic of Nigella in the swim-burka, in April of 2011:

The 51-year-old “Domestic Goddess” jokingly described herself as “built like a shot-putter”.

“If I lost 40lbs, I would age 10 years straightaway – That's my excuse," she told The Australian Women's Weekly.

"But you know women find it very easy to persecute themselves over their weight and whenever I've said, 'I ought to lose a bit of weight', I can guarantee I'll put it on.

The last line reminiscent of the teachings of the HAES (Health At Every Size) crowd....  There may be some truth to this, indeed part of the reason even the more slender Nigella  looks younger than Gillian is in part due to the fact that she still has some padding on her bones and facial bones in particular.    My second reason for discussing this, however, is because sometime after that, Nigella dropped the excuses and went *GASP* on a diet!    In recent reports:  Domestic goddess Nigella Lawson draws attention to her derriere on lunch date with husband (picture at right she's described as "super slim", I note the hair is atrocious, something else the rags picked on for it appearing to thin in the back), and REVEALED: The secret behind Nigella Lawson's incredible weight loss, we learn she's trimmed down from a size 18 to a 12 (UK sizes).  Now that I know more than I needed to about Lawson ... How'd she do it?  By the Clean and Lean diet (summarized in that second link).  In a nutshell:

He [James Duigan] believes the body does not cling onto fat, as many people believe. It is processed foods and drinks and excess sugar that pollute the body, causing fat to cling to the hips, thighs, bum and tummy.

Sounds almost Taubesian but not quite.  Also sounds like it might just be another low carb diet.   We get more details in an article published just yesterday in the Mirror:  How to slim like Nigella Lawson with the Clean and Lean plan.    

Meals on James's diet plan are full of fish, lean meat - including turkey and chicken - and fresh, preferably organic vegetables.

Clearly we're talking that dreaded Dukan diet.  Everyone knows that in order to lose fat you have to eat fat, right?   Chicken?  Not the breast meat without skin and extra butter to drip down my arms??  James' also advises a mixture of yoga or pilates with something that gets your heart pumping (cardio!!).  Ahh ... but at least it sounds LC!  Some further elaboration on the diet rules: 

1. Cut the C.R.A.P

Avoid the four main food groups that cause fat to cling to our bodies: caffeine, refined sugar, alcohol and processed foods. {Sounds LCHF friendly so far, nothing about butter there! Phew!!}

2.   But allow yourself a weekly cheat meal Once a week, enjoy an indulgent meal of whatever you fancy, from creamy pasta to a slice of chocolate cake with cream. As long as you're eating clean, healthy food the rest of the time, an occasional high-fat treat actually speeds up your metabolism.  {Didn't Duigan read Atkins?  If one bite can mess it all up for days, one indulgent meal a week will undo all the rest.  Your fat will get locked up into the cells for sure!!  NOTE:  high fat TREAT}

3. Take fish oil supplements
They burn fat and supply essential fatty acids.  {Everyone needs a gimmick, presumably this is in the Body Brilliance supplement at exaggerated cost.}

4.  Always have breakfast
Eat within one hour of waking up. If you don't have time for a proper breakfast, just grab a piece of fruit and a few nuts.  {Was almost sounding like Leptin Man there for a minute ... }

5. Don't eat after 8pm
Eating a large meal in the evening when your body is slowing down or sleeping is a bad idea for your digestion and weight. {Sounds a little like Dr. Cate and others ... }

All still LC friendly.  Then we get a gander at the sample menus.  I'll C&P two here:

Day 1

• Breakfast: Omelette made with three egg whites and filled with 75g chopped mixed peppers and a handful of spinach
• Mid-morning snack: 100g chicken with ½ red pepper, sliced
• Lunch: One grilled chicken breast, mixed salad leaves, red peppers, green beans and ¼ tbsp olive oil
• Mid-afternoon snack: 100g turkey breast with ¼ cucumber, sliced
• Dinner: 100g grilled chicken breast with steamed broccoli

Day 2

• Breakfast: Baked chicken breast with a handful of stir-fried kale
• Mid-morning snack: 100g turkey breast and ½ green pepper, sliced
• Lunch: Baked haddock fillet with mixed green salad, with ½ tbsp olive oil
• Mid-afternoon snack: 100g turkey breast with 75g steamed broccoli
• Dinner: One salmon steak with chopped dill and steamed green beans

This is even more austere sounding than the JumpStartMD plan!  Do they even make 1/4 Tablespoons?  That's less than one teaspoon!  What's with these steamed veggies.  There's way too much chicken breast here!!  Sounds like lean "meat" (lamb makes an appearance in one sample meal, otherwise this is mostly poultry breast and seafood) and veggies.  Well ... at least Wheat Belly would be proud.   But there can be no doubt ... Nigella owes her current figure to good old Eating Less and Moving More!

After - Size 12                            Before - Size 18

It worked for Nigella!   And yes, she still looks younger than Gillian despite not eating a whole lot of butter for a considerable period.   Hmmm ... and she looks younger having dropped the weight after all ... again -- without consuming a whole bunch of animal fat.   

Of course ... it wouldn't be fair to compare now, right?

Look folks.  Aging happens.  Shit happens.  For those of us who have gotten significantly more overweight than others, that may mean not being able to undo that shit completely either.  And for crying out loud, none of us can or should compare ourselves to photos of celebs because there just is NO way to know if there has been "work", creative lighting and other camera techniques (anyone remember how Cybil Shepard was supposedly filmed through pantyhose for Moonlighting?), photoshopping, etc.  I go back to Hillary Clinton -- they took 15 years off her face (at least!) in some of those debates, and yet candid shots sans makeup taken around the same time revealed a much different Hillary.   I would hate to be a celebrity because even the most photogenic among us with super slim bods can look downright gnarly in snapshots.  

I just think the low carbers (and paleos for that matter) ought to be more careful and considerate before posting nonsense like "who looks older" stuff like the McKeith/Lawson comparison.  Let's also keep in mind that while McKeith can rightly be judged somewhat on her appearance as she advocates for a particular way of eating, I'm not sure the same is fair for Lawson -- a point I made with respect to Paula Deen as well.  Indeed although she seems healthy, Nigella serves as the cautionary tale for any woman, especially those with more curves to start with.  She can't keep eating the way she cooks ... doing so didn't wear well after a while.  So the more fair comparison would be McKeith (who does not appear to have altered her appearance surgically) to Carpender -- and there are far less flattering pictures of both to be found on the internet.  I'd call it a wash.  But when stacking up the low carb community in general (especially the women of a certain age) against those following more traditional dietary lifestyles?  Like, say Denise Austin ...  I just don't know.  

Sorry Jimmy.  Passing along garbage like the pictures of McKeith and Lawson is just idiocy.  And please, comparing Sisson to Ornish is a bit much.  I'll have at that one sometime when I get around to it.  Suffice it to say that I think quite a few will be dismayed at the real life appearance of more than a few Paleo f(x) and LC Cruise speakers ...