In this way – and only in this way – he’s like Charles Saatchi, the millionaire ad-man and art collector, whose wife, Nigella Lawson, has revealed that her husband’s recent massive weight loss is down to a strict diet of nine eggs a day. He ate three for breakfast, three for dinner, three for supper and nothing else for nine months and lost a whopping four stone.
It’s crazy, but I applaud the man’s willpower. How difficult must it be to lose serious amounts of weight when you’ve got Britain’s most famous domestic goddess slinking around the house, licking whipped cream off her fingers and purring about the joys of tiramisu?

Nevertheless, he did it and his new, somewhat gaunt look (scarily like Nigella’s dad, Nigel, who lost several stone on a similarly draconian eating regime a few years ago) is testament to his alpha-male ability to create a new reality for himself, however much that new reality might smell of sulphur and make his wife describe him as "grumpy and crotchety".

Saatchi’s doctor despaired at such unhealthy eating habits, saying: "It’s neck-and-neck whether Charles keels over or loses the weight first," but somehow Saatchi survived the bizarre nine-eggs-a-day diet and now, with the date of a kilt-wearing wedding approaching, I can tell my husband is thinking about trying it too.

Men and women tend to diet very differently. Unless we’re Hollywood stars and need to lose a stone in ten minutes or we’ll never work again, women generally choose boring, eat-less, exercise-more options, which involve meeting other women, drinking Diet Coke and moaning about how difficult it all is.

We compare diets endlessly; we weigh up calories; use points systems; stretch our legs behind our heads, or feel the burn. We worry about whether we’re absorbing enough chromium and painstakingly juggle menus to make sure we’re getting our five a day.

Traditionally, women are supposed to be the weight obsessives, but when it comes to sheer, fanatical, single-minded self-reduction, the boys win almost every time.

All dieters want the quickest fix possible, but men seem to want it even quicker than women, so they’re much happier than we are to risk their long-term health in the quest to achieve a thinner tomorrow, today.

I’ve noticed male dieters are particularly seduced by the stringent, all-or-nothing approach. I know women who’ve tried things like the cabbage soup diet, the maple syrup diet, or nothing-but-cucumber, but these methods are usually employed as short-burst slimming strategies within a wider game plan.

Admittedly, Saatchi’s diet lasted much longer than the average male’s weight-loss regime, but I’m guessing now he’s triumphed, it’s possible he’s already edging towards the kind of eating patterns that got him into trouble in the first place.
A male friend recently ate only soup and water for a month. He did it alone and hardly ventured outside the house, but that was all part of the mastery-of-self battle he was waging. The results are stunning, but typical of the extreme masculine dieting patterns I keep coming across, which never seem to be about making small yet meaningful changes to your lifestyle, or simply eating slightly less.

For example, my husband is currently trying the Stone Age diet. If it’s authentic, then stone-age man took absolutely no exercise and sat around his cave all day bingeing on burgers (without the bun).

So far, the effects on his waistline have been minimal, but he says he likes it because it’s simple and it means he doesn’t have to think about recipes, or anything boring like that.

And that sums it up, really. When men want to lose fat, they want to do it simply, spectacularly quickly, and with no thought for the future of their bodies. Which is why I’m worried by the return of my brother-in-law from Nepal, looking unusually svelte. An attack of Kathmandu colon caused him to lose two stone in as many weeks and my husband is impressed. "It’s perfect!" he enthused. "You go somewhere exotic, eat whatever you like, and lose loads of weight just by sitting down! It’s the perfect diet!"

I can see there’s only one thing that might stop this madness – I’ll have to buy him a new kilt.

Source: The Scotsman

In her new cookbook, “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes,” chef, food stylist and writer Jennifer McLagan challenges medical studies that have linked diet to heart disease.

McLagan, whose first book “Bones” won a James Beard Award in 2006, said that up until the last few decades, fat has always had positive connotations, and that the more people deprived themselves of ingredients such as butter, lard and chicken skin, the fatter and sicker they have become.

McLagan insists animal fats are not only essential to cooking delicious food, but – in moderation – are more easily digested than the alternatives and have other health benefits, like boosting the immune system and lowering bad cholesterol.

McLagan, 54, who lives in Toronto but grew up in Melbourne, Australia, spoke to Reuters about debunking fat phobias.

Q: What inspired you to write a book about fat?

A: “After ‘Bones,’ someone said what are you going to write next and I said well I’m going to do the trilogy — skin and fat. So I thought, skin, that’s a little slim, that book. But I thought about fat and I thought about how I’ve never really stopped eating fat.

“I guess I escaped Australia in the ’70s and ended up in France up to my armpits in pork fat and beef fat and duck fat, so I never got that margarine kind of scare thing and it never stopped me. But then when I started thinking about it, I thought, oh, I still had that thing, like I would have that reaction to a well marbled steak or a slice of pork belly thinking, ooh, there’s a lot of fat there. I knew that’s where the flavor was but I wanted to find out more about it.”

Q: Why has fat gotten a bad rap?

A: “I think it was just misassociated. People were trying to find a reason for the increase in heart attacks and heart disease in the middle of the last century and scientists were looking for a reason and certain theories were proposed. And these were always theories and like everybody, they manipulated the facts to fit.

“So they picked out these things and they said animal fat was bad for you and if you ate animal fat you know it will increase your cholesterol, increase your risk of heart attack, but it was never proved. It was only an associated thing. It was never causal. They left out the French, they left out the Inuit, they left out any population that didn’t fit into their plan. That was the first thing. And then when the U.S. Congress (adopted it), we started to believe our government rather than our grandmother about what we should eat.”

Q: How do you hope to change people’s perception of fat?

A: “There’s this association that fat goes from your lips to your hips. And that’s not true. Eating fat does not make you fat. Eating too much, too many calories, too much sugar, too many carbs, makes you fat. I’d like to argue eating fat makes you lose weight because you’re so satisfied eating fat you don’t snack and you don’t eat too much of whatever you’re eating.”

Q: What is your favorite fat to cook with?

A: “I love duck fat to cook potatoes. There is nothing better than, of course if you can get goose fat or foie gras fat, but they’re all the same family. Potatoes cooked in duck fat because duck fat has a rich sweetness. And my new latest favorite fat, well I used to always use suet, which is the kidney fat, from the veal or the beef because I grew up with mincemeat … And one of the things I did when I was doing “Fat,” just for interest, I made what I would call scones or tea biscuits with butter, lard, duck fat, suet, baked them all off and I gave them to people to eat to see which ones they would like and you know the one with suet is just amazingly light.”

Q: How much fat do you eat?

A: “Probably more than a lot of people but not an obscene amount, because it’s not like I’m pouring it on absolutely everything that I eat. But I’m definitely not scared of it. I’m quite happy to have it on things, but like I said, two slices of pork belly and, uncle, I can’t eat anymore. Whereas I could probably eat five or six slices of pork tenderloin if I let myself.”

Bacon Mayonnaise

Author’s note: Is it possible to improve upon a classic BLT? I think so, by adding another layer of flavor with my bacon mayonnaise. The recipe makes about enough for four sandwiches. It’s best to use it all up as the bacon fat will turn it solid in the refrigerator.

Makes about 1/2 cup/125 ml

1 egg yolk

3/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup/125 ml liquid bacon

Combine the egg yolk, mustard, and lemon juice in the small bowl of a food processor or in a blender and process to mix. Season with salt and pepper. Have the bacon fat liquid, but not hot. With the machine running, gradually add the bacon fat until the mixture starts to stiffen and emulsify, about two minutes. Once it starts to emulsify, you can add the fat more quickly. If the mayonnaise is too thick, just blend in one teaspoon of boiling water to thin it. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Source: abs-cbnnews.com

At the top of the page are the words, «Eating triggers».

Under each picture, and within a Countdown-like timeframe, me and three other women with weight «issues» or a Curly Wurly-like body image were asked to write down under each one what we thought our triggers are.

I started off with «breathing», as in I’m awake and that’s normally enough to set me off into the dangerous playground of carbohydrates if unsupervised, then I got to «thoughtlessness».

Confused faces from the room resulted in me explaining this away in my usual cockeyed manner.

«Girls,» I said. «It’s like this, see. The only time I DON’T think of eating or how wrapped up I am in the confusion of what I can eat versus what I can’t is when I’m actually stuffing my face. See? That’s thoughtlessness. Because if I allowed myself some space to actually think about what I’m doing, or try to iron out the lumps in my self-perception, maybe I wouldn’t want to act out in the way that I do.»

My new pals all nodded their «ahas» and «yeps» and «God, I know what you mean» with gusto, as we each shared our divergent stories about what binds us all together.

And that’s lasagne with crusty bits on the edge. It’s melted cheese. It’s full-fat pop and orange. It’s knowing you’re going to have chicken salad in a hotel restaurant when you’re travelling on your own only for your mouth to betray you during your order and you somehow silence the guilty chattering in your mind with beef burgers and chips. It’s about saying no to dieting. Or yes. And back again, without really understanding the force of your yo-yo. It’s about paying for that choice afterwards in the currency of guilt.

It’s the desertion of will power, the constant battle to DO something about it, to exercise yourself away and back into the safety zone of average.

It’s lack of motivation, it’s confusion, it’s bloody bonkers, that’s what it is.

And that’s what Lifeshapers, a multi-media Welsh company which helps you «find the tools you need to reduce your comfort eating, escape the dieting game and still lose weight», aims to help you sort out.

It’s a big promise, but one that its founder, Chrissie Webber – think Cinderella’s fairy godmother only in turquoise and without anything made of pumpkins – says she can deliver on. Unlike most women who have been there and done it and lost the T-shirt as it’s now waaaaaaay too small, Chrissie is still a big woman. The difference between her and others who have “struggled” with their weight, is that she celebrates the fact that she has achieved so much – a 5st loss and counting – and doesn’t beat herself up about the fact that she’s not «there» yet, that holy grail of self-acceptance, or can always turn down a blueberry muffin. She can’t. And that, as I’m yet to fully understand, is the twist in the sanctity of being human.

Her voice, lying somewhere between caramel and Nutella on the gooey and gorgeous scale, is an exercise in joy; her demeanour kindly but never condescending; her message so hopeful and helpful it should come in tubes to rub in on doubtful days.

The whole ethos of Lifeshapers is to discover the weight you were born to be. And that, even by my wonky reasoning, means that it could be what you are right now. Right this minute. It’s to adopt what wonder Webber calls «conscious eating» (and that doesn’t mean knowing you’ve got gravy running up your arm), «mindfulness» (meditations to reduce stress and therefore the need for comfort eating), «feeding your soul» (this is about loving yourself, perhaps the hardest skill to learn of all) and «body awareness» (loving the skin you’re in, another corker).

After only one session, I felt lighter, in spirit if not in stones. The danger for me is that I’ll fall hopelessly in love with this new philosophy. It’s happened on every diet I’ve ever been on, a full-on passionate affair which eventually fades away to something less promising when reality, or at least my version of it, sets in.

But if you’re looking for something new, something different, something not judgmental, something which you can do on-line as well as off, give Lifeshapers a go.

After all, it’s better to have loved and not lost a pound, than never to have loved at all.

Lifeshapers hosts a one-day workshop on September 27 at Tonteg Community Centre. Call 07515 640 056 or visit www.lifeshapers.co.uk

Source: walesonline.co.uk

We asked members of the Times Health Club to try out the current crop of new diet books. Here’s their verdict

ANNIE L, 33, ESSEX

Dieting Makes You Fat by Geoffrey Cannon (Virgin Books)

The idea

The book outlines seven golden rules to help change your attitude to food and encourage a much more positive and healthy lifestyle. Follow each one for a month.

Easy to follow?

I attempted a condensed version, which was easy to follow. The rules included: drink more water; be active every day; eat more fresh food, etc. I struggled with one where you are encouraged to fast, although this means only cutting out processed junk.

Did it slot into your day-to-day life?

It would be sensible for the whole family to follow. Cannon is not suggesting anything outlandish, simply to be more aware of choices and to go for healthier options.

Will you keep it up?

Yes, absolutely. It’s sensible but definitely not a quick fix of any kind. It is more an overhaul of your entire diet.

Did you supplement it with exercise?

Yes, I go out running twice a week, as well as a six-mile walk once a week.

How much did you lose?

7lb in four weeks.

Verdict?

Very good, but I struggled to stay interested, as there is so much background on the author, on the dieting industry and the food business.

GOESONA BIT, 46, HERTFORDSHIRE

Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories, Lorraine Clissold (Constable)

The idea

Food that’s good for the mind and body rather than satisfying a hunger. Fill up on staples (rice and noodles), vegetables should make up the main part of a meal (the Chinese eat little protein) and eat only until full.

Easy to follow?

Most of it was, but a small part deals with the idea that foods are related to elements, which in turn are related to certain organs of the body. I found that complicated.

Did it slot into your day-to-day life?

I’m home most of the time so it wasn’t that hard to fit into my routine.

Will you keep it up?

Filling up on fresh veg and rice, experimenting with different ingredients and drinking plenty of green tea, yes. I don’t miss protein and because the Chinese don’t do sweet foods (sweet foods are related to the mouth and stomach, so if we put too much in our mouths, it ends up around our stomachs), I don’t get those dips in blood sugar and huge cravings.

Did you supplement it with exercise?

Rigorous exercise routines are discouraged in favour of regular gentle exercise, so I bought a pedometer and tried to increase the amount of steps I take every day.

How much did you lose?

4lb in four weeks.

Verdict?

If you eat with chopsticks you can’t shovel your food down, so the brain has time to realise the stomach is full. Best of all, it teaches you that counting calories is a waste of time.

MAGGY B, 53, NORFOLK

No Fads, No Frills, No Nonsense Weight Loss Plan by Jim Johnson (Virgin Books)

The idea

The book looks at different formulas for losing weight (avoiding carbohydrates, or vegetable-only diets, for example) and gives a basic round-up of the most successful techniques.

Easy to follow?

Yes.

Did it slot into your day-to-day life?

Very easily. The message is simple: eat less, exercise more.

Will you keep it up?

Now I’m back from holiday I’m starting again.

Did you supplement it with exercise?

Yes, it was part of the deal, so that you can offset the calories you eat with the calories you burn off with exercise.

How much did you lose?

3lb in two weeks.

Verdict?

I was impressed. This diet showed me how to lose weight without starving myself, so it should also be more sustainable. You have to write everything down, which I think helps, and also do 30 minutes of exercise a day, but that included things such as gardening, housework, etc, and I do more than that anyway!

JACKIE M, 43, THE SCOTTISH BORDERS

Life-Changing Weight Loss by Amanda Hamilton and Sandy Newbigging (Piatkus Books)

The idea

Hidden causes (physical and emotional) prevent you from getting the body you want. It also demands that you entirely avoid processed and ready-prepared foods.

Easy to follow?

No, as I had to source lots of bizarre ingredients, such as psyllium husks, and some of the recipes were difficult to follow.

Did it slot into your day-to-day life?

No, as it was very time-consuming. Everything had to be prepared from scratch, even muesli.

Will you keep it up?

I will still continue to use it as a guide.

Did you supplement it with exercise?

Yes, at the moment I’m training for a mini-triathlon, on September 21, only I have a calf injury at the moment and have to be careful.

How much did you lose?

4lb in two weeks.

Verdict?

Although the psychology of “Discover, Resolve and Enjoy” (love yourself from the inside and eat less processed foods) seemed strange at first, it did make a lot of sense.

RUTHIE M, 57, PETERBOROUGH

Getting The Best From The GI Diet, Rick Gallop (Virgin Books)

The idea

Balancing the three main food groups, fats, proteins and carbohydrates, and understanding how they are digested and metabolised by our bodies.

Easy to follow?

Yes.

Did it slot into your day-to-day life?

It fitted quite easily into daily life. I did have to buy one or two store cupboard items, such as wheatgerm and rolled oats, which were expensive, but can be used in several recipes.

Will you keep it up?

Yes, I think it’s a plan anyone could follow for life.

Did you supplement it with exercise?

I do a lot of exercise already but I haven’t increased this.

How much did you lose?

9lb in five weeks.

Verdict?

It made me realise how much sugar and saturated fats were in my diet, which I now try very hard to cut out. I loved it – I’ve even bought another of Rick Gallop’s books.

Source: timesonline.co.uk

Republican party vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is also the governor of Alaska, revealed what sounds like a pretty strange diet and fitness routine to those of us from the lower 48, but that’s probably pretty common among people from the great white north.

Palin told the Wall Street Journal that she’s always been a runner and her first child is named Track because he was born in that season. She is now running three miles every other day, down from seven to 10 miles a day before she got pregnant with her fifth child, Trig, and admits she’ll run at midnight in the summer, since it’s still light then.

While pregnant she says she was doing aerobics classes at the gym to stay in shape, and uses dumbbells and snowmobiling to keep her upper body strong.

She says the family eats a pretty healthy diet full of wild Alaskan seafood, caribou and moose, as well as fresh fruit. (By the way, we’ve got all the nutritional information you could want on classic Alaskan foods.) Her health pitfall is skipping breakfast, or having nothing but a white chocolate mocha.

Water is her workout fuel and what she consumes after a run as well, and she says her biggest obstacle to consistency is being pregnant every few years.

Huckabee offers tips for staying slim

Another Republican runner offering health tips this week is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who tells the New York Times that he used to hate exercise, but now that he’s dropped more than 100 pounds he’s hoping to encourage some of his fellow convention-goers to be a little healthier.

He says at a big event full of temptation like a convention, it’s important to eat six or seven small meals a day and load up on protein but go easy on the carbs early in the day.

If you want to eat carbs, make sure they’re whole grain and only eat them later in the day. Drink plenty of water and never drink calories. And spend plenty of time running away from reporters for exercise, he says.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

«He wears his pedometer around all the time,» said Galer. «He’s just really into it with the family workshop he went to.»

Her weight-loss camp and others are inviting mom, dad and siblings to share the camp experience so they can help campers stay motivated when they return home where unhealthy temptations and habits lurk.

For her father, Michael Galer, and 16-year-old sister, Kyla, that meant a three-day family workshop at the end of Kelsey’s stay at Wellspring Camp for young women in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

They got an induction into the 18-year-old’s new, healthier lifestyle. Her father found himself doing aerobics and using a stability ball for yoga during the family session. Her sister cheered as Kelsey climbed to the top of a towering pine tree and flew down a zip-line.

Back home in Canton, Mass., the whole family has been reaping the benefits: her father lost 8 pounds, and now Kyla joins her at the gym. Within days, they were planning healthier grocery lists.

Wellspring is one of several weight-loss camps that add some family participation to the standard menu of exercise and healthy diets. Wellspring’s camp in Pinehurst, N.C., and the Pritikin program in Aventura, Fla., offer programs that include family members for the entire camp session.

But all that attention comes at a price: Roughly $5,000 to $9,000, depending on the camp and length of stay.

At the Adirondack camp, visiting family members join campers in the mornings for a long walk and at every meal. The rest of the time, parents attend classes on cooking, exercise and how to shop for healthy food. Siblings can tag along with campers to watch the daily activities.

«That had a big impression on her,» Kelsey Galer said of her sister’s visit to camp. «She just got a taste of my new lifestyle. We had spent a lot of time together (before camp), but it was never time like that – being active and eating healthy.»

The results of a three-year Wellspring survey of campers suggests that family support is beneficial, according to Daniel Kirschenbaum, Wellspring clinical director. The campers who reported having strong family support or used the post-camp program did better at maintaining or continuing to lose weight than those without strong support.

At the Wellspring camp in Pinehurst, N.C., about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, parents join children between the ages of 5 and 14 for sessions that include sports, personal training and a spa.

Therapy is part of both programs to help people understand why they overeat and how to manage stress. Parents learn how to motivate their children to be healthy instead of discouraging them or emphasizing bad body image.

Dr. Chris Bolling, who heads the weight loss program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said fat is a family affair.

«You have to model good behavior,» he said. «We know this for all sorts of behavior in kids. You don’t tell kids to do one thing and then do something else … kids, very quickly, pick up on it when their parents aren’t practicing what they’re preaching.»

The Pritikin Program near Miami offers a family camp that promotes exercise and a diet emphasizing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seafood, nonfat dairy foods, and limited lean meat. Children also take cooking classes and go on field trips to learn about things like finding healthy options at the mall.

Priscilla Marquard has taken her triplets – 12-year-olds Caroline, Alex and Audrey – to the Pritikin family camp each summer for the past three years. The girls have always been a healthy weight, but she saw it as an opportunity to reinforce healthy habits as a family.

«You can really put them in a room full of unhealthy food, somehow they’re going to find a way to eat healthy,» said Marquard, of Orlando, Fla.

Her daughter Audrey concurs: «I loved Oreos, and now I can’t even look at that stuff.»

Kelsey Galer had tried to lose weight before by exercising but without much success. The 5-foot teenager started camp at 170 pounds and lost about 9 pounds in a month. About three weeks after leaving camp, she had dropped 12 more pounds. She has followed up with the camp, logging her food intake, exercise and weight online. She can also reach out to counselors if she needs additional help or motivation.

She said the support has helped her stay on track and get ready for college in the fall.

«It would have been a lot harder. I probably would have had a really hard time sticking to the diet and staying motivated,” she said. “It’s really good to know that other people want you to succeed.»