Weight loss, low carb?, aging, chefs and bikers
Ahh ... a little something for everyone in this post. I was thinking on the whole biker doc in the kitchen fiasco, the "who looks older" crap on Jimmy's blog, and whatnot ... and one Alton Brown popped into my mind. You see, a few years back, Alton had a miniseries of sorts on Food Network called Feasting on Asphalt. Wow ... looking at that link it was six years ago - 2006! Basically Alton took a bike trip up the Mississippi stopping along the way to culinary landmarks to sample local cuisines. I love this sort of stuff, I confess. Still, he was carrying quite a bit of extra weight on his frame at the time.
Alton, born in 1962, was 44 that year. Now ... I must preface this by saying I'm a hu-uuuge AB fan, and have a bit of a geek crush on the guy. I've also learned a crapload about cooking from him though I rarely, to this day, follow any recipes to a tee. I've probably seen most if not all episodes of his Good Eats show. I had no idea that he and I were around the same age -- he always looked a bit older to me. It seems that different things tend to age women and men ... in Alton's case there's no doubt that the hairline can contribute to an older look (full disclosure here, hubby has been sporting the Tom Colicchio look for at least a decade now). But he's also had his fair share of wrinkles. The video is from 1999 (Season 1) which would put him at 37. Looking a bit more boyish, but in the closeups you can see he's already got those forehead furrows going. The pic at the right is undated.
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What's that we've been saying about the lighter complected and aging? And genes and aging? Must be cuz he's cooking his steak with O6 oils. He doesn't cook his steak in coconut oil ... gasp!! Now Alton prepares all sorts of foods on his show as you can see from this list of Good Eats episodes. All without the decadent nonsense, but not sparing the fat, salt, carbs, whatever when "appropriate" for the foods. Alton has waxed poetic on health from time to time, but mostly he's about proper preparation of foods, and the way I see it, maximizing the natural flavors of the foods he highlights.
And yet, AB fell prey to the middle aged spread like the best of us. His "ah ha" moment apparently came from looking at video from that biker special, and others. You can see for yourself in the video at right. (At least watch the first part with the disclaimer ... funny stuff). Gotta love the "Buff Like Me" title for the book (not Sensationally Skinny? Wha??). This was aired in Jan of 2010 so he was 47 going on 48 at the time and had began his diet early in 2009. There were actually rumors about AB and his being sick, etc. I watched the episode, and thought, frankly, he looked like crap. So ... losing weight and eating healthier .......
There's a perception, right or wrong, that as we age, the truly lean tend to begin to look frail, get that emaciated about the face & neck look, etc. But I remember when this was announced, Jimmy was all about how AB was Livin la Vida Low Carb!.
People who watch The Food Network aren’t usually conscientious of the relationship between diet and health because quite frankly most of the recipes shared by the “stars” on there each and every day are loaded with way too much excessive sugar and carbohydrates that will simply pack on the pounds.
Speak for yourself Jimmy ... and do remember that excessive fat is just as, if not more unhealthy.
The producers have tried in the past to highlight the benefits of eating well on a healthy low-carb nutritional approach when the great George Stella ... with his “Low-Carb & Lovin’ It” show back in the heyday of livin’ la vida low-carb in the middle of the last decade. But with the low-carb “fad” allegedly passing in 2004 and now that nobody seems to be interested in healthy cooking on The Food Network anymore (although I think they’re missing a golden opportunity to hit an under-served market of viewers!), the producers completely ditched the idea of promoting a health-related cooking show.
BS Jimmy. If there were a market for it, Stella would be back on the Cooking Channel at least. Apparently Jimmy has never heard of Ellie Krieger (no relation to James I don't think). Right now that link is featuring a video of Portabella Benedict. Low carb friendly (eggs and bacon too! OK, OK, she does perpetuate the dietary cholesterol myth, and lean Canadian bacon, but ...). Jimmy continues:
He looks fantastic and a lot of low-carbers found it rather eye-opening to hear how he did it — “scientific applications of nutritional principles…I ate a lot of sardines instead of cake…and the pounds melt right off!” Hmmmm. Sounds a whole heckuva lot like livin’ la vida low-carb if you ask me. Plus, you gotta love that “zero carbs” pasta alternative he created out of the eggplant for the recipe on The View. Alton says he may even write a book about it which would be quite intriguing. I’m currently working with his people on getting a podcast interview to discuss his amazing weight loss success. Stay tuned!
Guess that never happened. Turns out his diet wasn't really low carb as revealed on his January 2010 Live and Let Diet episode. Funny how the low carbers are eager to include folks like AB in their tent to promote a lifestyle, and yet how folks like to ostracize the non-ketogenic as not "true" low carbers, or those of us who don't dollop fat on everything of eating LC the "wrong" way.
But what will they do now that one of their network’s biggest stars has lost a total of 50 pounds by consuming what could easily be described as a low-carb diet? That’s exactly the dilemma they find themselves in ...
Well, 2010 did begin with that diet episode featuring a fruit smoothie, sardines on toast and an almond snack. Alton speaks of avocados and salmon. Nothing about piling the butter on everything! But the episode list reveals, there wasn't much change in Alton's show for the approximately year and a half more that it ran. Perhaps Jimmy should take advice from AB:
He also limits himself to just one alcoholic beverage weekly [JM doesn't drink] and believes that “portion-control, lean protein” is the way to go for him!
Just sayin Jimster ... Ahh but isn't the AB "biker chef" the perfect comparison for the would-be new LC cooking show? Hilariously, Jimmy even compares Carlson's schtick to AB's:
WOW, wouldn’t this be incredible to see on cable or network television someday? It’s both educational and entertaining that reminds me of the wackiness of somebody like Alton Brown on The Food Network. And yet it maintains the dietary integrity of what high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb living is all about and passing on that message to the television viewers at home.
Uhhhhhhhhh ... no. Alton is funneeee! Carlson just looks funny. Apparently something about 8 years of low carbing has altered Jimmy's vision, because even the "still" of the YouTube video, right there on his blog page, shows Carlson is packing a gut and a chin. He's not skinny or ... tiny! And so much for the excuse that he's a biker (see the comments for all these funnies). I was not aware that riding a motorcycle required or dictated a certain physique, but perhaps Carlson should trade the bike for a bicycle on occasion .... I'm pretty sure the slimmer Alton is still riding.
So bringing this full circle, to these eyes, losing the weight initially did age Alton. This may not be obvious in the pics/vids I posted here, but AB fans watching his shows at the time were quite shocked by his appearance, myself included. This happened to Bill Clinton too, just to name one more public figure. But it is what it is!! Should we have a guess Carlson's age lottery here at the Asylum? Nah ... that wouldn't be fair. According to my information ...... {tease and grin} .... Alton turns 50 this year:
Comments
Like you, I thought the new Alton was a bit bordering on gaunt after the weight loss reveal. Commenters on my blog post pointed out that Alton achieved some of this weight loss by a daily four mile run, so perhaps this is part of the whole lowering cals, raising cortisol of "chronic cardio" at work too.
I'm not a smoothie person either. I'd rather eat my fruit and have my new favorite Greek yogurt with it (or my old fave 2% cottage cheese).
Not sure I buy into some of the cortisol stuff. Dunno what his mile time is, but that's not too too much chronic cardio. Still daily ...
@Genia, I think people who eat LC and Paleo-style diets should eat differently than people on mixed diets. Why not eat meat if you eat only one full meal a day besides small breakfast or lunch? Many people who start eating LC follow the pattern they followed with conventional diet, eat several meals a day, snacks,power bars, nuts between meals, drink smoothies with protein powder . Some of them come to their senses, while some are not.I personally believe that eating LC could help with eating less to the people who want to do it without too much discomfort. It was interesting to read about your family menu, but for me it doesn't prove anything.
I also wish I could shake Alton's hand.
I work in a country where there are many immigrant blue-collar workers from south Asia who are at normal weight/never been fat (and most probably 80-90% carb eaters, ha) and their faces look like ABs in middle age with low/normal body fat.
@Galina: In some ways I consider you an outlier in the LC community. As many IF'ers as are around, there are still a lot of 3 meal-a-dayers and 6 small meals grazers. Many of these beef more than twice a day. I understand why beef is your protein of choice. Still, when I read (like over at paleohacks) of people eating 1 lb, 2 lbs, sometimes 3 lbs beef/day, day in and day out, (a) I wonder how they can afford it, and (b) I'm just amazed. We make Alton Brown burgers here on the grill -- 5 oz, 1/2 tsp salt per -- I buy a pound of Trader Joe's beef which makes three 5-1/3rd oz patties. I eat one, usually with a slice of melted Muenster cheese. This is plenty for me. On days we have steak or prime rib, I do eat quite a bit more (porterhouse's are amazing) but I'm not having two other full meaty meals.
One side of my family is southern Japanese, although not everyone is thin and blessed with longetivy, that is the side which has many people living past 90. The ones who do naturally subscribe to healthier diet/ lifestyle than ones who aren't as long-living. I have relatives on that side who are stout and have pre-Diabetes, but I also have many who have stayed healthy and fit throughout their long lives. So in my opinion diet and lifestyle, not just genetics, do play a pertinent role in overall health.
Of course saying that my long-living relatives eats/ ate moderate portions of meat or "poisionous" soybeans (albeit also in moderate/ small amounts), automatically renders my family's history/ experiences as being unreliably anecdotal and thus devoid of merit. Meanwhile, equally anecdotal stories of "Paleo success stories" are often accepted as Gospel. Many in the Paleo community are becoming like those they demonize, e.g. the mainstream, lowfat/ high carb/ whole grains gurus in that they too dogmatically refuse to contemplate positions which might impair their own dogmatic views.
I have been conscious of my quite chubby low-legs (actually my all bottom part is heavy and chubby, but low part below knees could never been addressed with any diet). Now I finally noticed that part got slimmer as a result of aging.There is still a decent amount of padding is present under my skin. My husband jokes I am build to swim in a cold water.
You told that a lot of participants of GM's blog complained frequently of hunger. My guess is JM's advise could be less thoughtful than TB's advice who put a lot of emphasis on the adaptation to the fasting. The details usually matter a lot.
I have a guess how folks eat too much meat.Probably, many are young males who do too much of bodybuilding. Vilhjalmur Stefansson consumed quite a lot during his all meat experiment. Me and you are both don't mind cooking. The good piece of meat requires minimal preparation and very easy to cook, it is the fastest and easiest thing after buying a food. Sometimes I think that majority of culinary art came from the desire to stretch meat or make some sub-optional food to taste better. What if do not try to spare meat? Probably, using a Foreman grill to cook piece of meat or chicken is the easiest thing to do for somebody who is intimidated by cooking and don't want to eat a fast food or buy some frozen meal, besides, the cost is close. My 19 yo son who decided to eat Paleo in order to have an easier time with eczema, uses 1 lb of meat a day. Besides meat and eggs he also eats starches (rice, potatoes,buckwheat), veggies, cheese, butter. One lb of grass-fed stew meat costs $5.19, sirloin tip - about $8 for a lb, beef tong(and other organ meats) - 3.99, while the cost of one meal in the cafeteria - $7. Besides eating in the cafeteria, he used to buy a lot of snacks and didn't realized the add cost .
Lots of folks on Jimmy's forum have barely a clue who he is. For most of the time I participated there, there were robo-announcements of new posts on his blog, podcasts, etc., but very few posts about much else by Jimmy.
I'm pretty sure the Eat Stop Eat guy isn't low carb.
For upper body fat predisposed people like me this was a non issue. Even at low body fat what I do have goes right to my face rounding out those cheeks and people don't seem to have much of a reaction. That is nice [although the reverse applies and is not so nice :)], a good friend of mine who is a pear shape will start to get the "too much/unhealthy" comments even when she sincerely does still have fat to lose. In order to lose fat you have to be in calorie deficit. In calorie deficit you are unlikely to be doing a lot of muscle building. Maybe some...but not a lot. So people in that predicament kind of do need to endure the upper body being a bit leaner than they'd really like for a few months while they lose fat off of their lower body. Then they can eat at maintenance and increase the mass on the upper body and things balance out. The face usually recovers its more fleshed out appearance at maintenance of leaner composition as well imo.
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A good theory, defininitely possible.
I also suspect something going the other way - social modules would feed back to perceptual modules such that whatever is viewed as good socially is eventually perceived as good, period, and verbal protestations eventually come to be seen as good.
In extremis, this is what makes for anorexia and stacked rings elongating the neck and inch-wide hoops stretching the earlobes and bound feet.
It's another facet of reward theory I think needs exploring - the feedback/feedforward of brain modules to each other, specifically social modules controlling perceptual and reward modules and reward modules feeding forward to perception.
optical illusions are only the start ...
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