Last Sunday a Michelin starred London chef posted a photo of his breakfast on twitter: a plain one-egg omelette, half a slice of dry toast, and a dollop of tomato ketchup on the side. Of course, responses to the tweet included photos of larger breakfasts had by others, but there was not one word of outrage or even surprise.
On a chef’s only day spent at home with their family, a day that in England near always includes a fry up, the man himself – apprentice of Alain Ducasse – was starting the day with a meagre 150kcal. It was the antithesis of food-porn.
Tales of abstinence from other such venerated foodies sprang to mind. Michel Roux remains svelte by drinking nothing from Monday to Friday and running marathons. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingsall is a changed man after stopping eating meat 18 months ago (for telly, rather than fun, but it has stayed with him). Gordon Ramsay eats no dairy. When reviewing a restaurant in the evening, one food critic [AA Gill?] eats nothing all day, subsisting instead on espressos and cigarettes. In his book The Man Who Ate the World, Jay Rayner shares tales of a life lived on hotel treadmills. One food stylist sprays all the food for a shoot with hairspray to render it inedible and not be tempted later.
I know not how I collect these facts. Do I remember what they ate? Rarely. Do I remember what they didn’t eat? Always. Yes, a reflection on me, but also – I suspect – the emphasis they put on the topic. No food-lover can find this easy.
Men are usually more smug and pragmatic about such things: those who achieve slender success are eager to point out that if you eat too much you get fat, and it’s just about eating less. It has been said that Charles Saatchi held out with a diet of only eggs in spite of living with Nigella Lawson. Other men’s diets just suggest you pick a day or two a week, and don’t eat.
It is mainly ladies who understand that the adage “eat less than you expend” is not quite so simple, and hence offer thoughtful suggestions for others to follow. Joanna Lumley admits to the Daily Mail that she eats neither breakfast nor lunch: ‘I quite often don’t have breakfast and I never have lunch. I find it helps not to wake my stomach up because if I had a good big breakfast, I would be ready for a snack at 11 and then a three-course lunch, then I’d be ready for tea, then a cocktail and then an enormous dinner.’ Yes, daily! One of the more sensible diet books for the foodie tubster – India Knight & Neris Thomas’s Pig to Twig – permits all the French classics, is wonderfully written and extremely effective… until you discover a talent for artisanal baking and an obsession with shaping the perfect tortellini.
A full-time sous-chef on their feet from 8am to 1am can never be fat, but for other food obsessives: the home cook, the recipe developer, the food entrepreneur, the chef who works a little less and has a slightly longer lunch; it is a constant nag.
There is probably no one-fits-all answer, but currently I eat only a grapefruit for breakfast and aspire to drink less booze and do a lot more running. Today I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a bottle of wine, crunch and chewed my way through sliced wholemeal sourdough, slathered over salted butter, and chowed down on a garlic tart, roast duck, and a toffee-apple pudding. Perhaps I should start with not repeating that tomorrow.
Any thoughts?
I mostly eat in a lower carb way (no rice, pasta, bread etc. and I’m even cautious about the amount of other starchy vegetables I eat in a week) which is particularly unfortunate for someone who enjoys baking.
The demographics of my neighbourhood are somewhat odd in being heavily-skewed to the very elderly, many of whom have chronic health conditions of one sort or another that mean they’re underweight. So, with less guilt than I would otherwise feel, I tend to give away the vast majority of what I bake/cook (outside the Short and Sweet challenges, there are some foods I make on a standing basis for some neighbours most weeks).
Aside from neighbours, the remainder of the food is distributed to colleagues, either for general consumption or re-distribution to the on-going bake sales that parents of young children always seem to be caught up in.
It does feel a little odd that I don’t taste much of what I eat (apart from checking seasoning) but I’ve had to reconcile myself to that. I enjoy cooking and I like experimenting – I couldn’t possibly try out the range of ingredients and techniques in which I’m interested if I didn’t know that I could give the results away. (I couldn’t possibly just throw something out as I have deep-seated visceral, somewhat irrational, reactions to the notion of food waste.)
I don’t know what other people do but I’d likewise be interested to learn.
I’ve gained and gained until a couple of months ago since I’ve taken to fasting. Seriously it is the only way i can get a grip on my appetite and I agree with Joanna Lumley.. if I eat Breakfast then I want to eat all day. It the only way I’ve stopped putting weight on.
I weirdly quite enjoy it and feel so much better for it!
I now feel that I ought to admit that a recent addition to my lower-carb way of eating is JUDDD – a variant on alternate day fasting which involves consuming 20-50% of your ‘usual’ calories on the Down Day and your usual calories on the Up Day.
So far this method works well for me and I’m less apprehensive about training my metabolism to adapt to less – which is a nagging concern with long-term calorie reduction. (I sustained some injuries in an accident so I’m currently less active than I typically would be and I wanted to avoid weight gain.)
I think the occasional day of not eating after enough eating does seem to be one that works well for ‘foodies’. I love Nigel Slater’s diaries where he has a heavy roast dinner one day, and the next “a bowl wiped out with new season garlic and a few salad leaves”.
Also a bit like the Dukan Diet which seems terribly trendy – think it’s a day off food a week, plus very low carbs. Never heard of JUDDD – how did you come across it?
There’s been a fair amount of research (mostly animal) into the immunology/endocrinology (and as a side-effect – longevity) impact of calorie restriction. There are currently some good, medium-term, high quality, human trials in progress but (for obvious reasons) these won’t report back for quite some time: eg Calerie – Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy.
“Essentially, the study asks whether calorie restriction allows people to grow older in better health — with less disease, fewer drugs and shorter hospital stays — through a method that neither medicine nor scientific technology have yet come close to approximating. Meanwhile, the experiment aims to shed some light on the more complex and still-unsettled question of whether calorie restriction affects primary aging, and thus longevity, in humans.”
Some of the current endocrinology research (with a heavy emphasis on diabetes and hormones related to obesity) has some encouraging early results with calorie cycling or methods that involve regular calorie restriction. I’m unconvinced by the hype around Resveratrol or the SIRT-1 gene at present but will keep an eye on it.
I’ve been aware of the claims around alternate day fasting – and I’m sure that it works for the people for whom it works. However, I think there’s some decent research that indicates that if somebody is constantly struggling with not eating it might have some hidden effects on the ability to make appropriate judgements (aka decision fatigue). Taking account of this, I prefer a calorie cycling schedule that includes food rather than abstinence. Nonetheless, I appreciate that this might be different for other people who might be triggered to eat more rather than keep within a tight limit on that day or who would be pushed into decision fatigue by having to make decisions involving when/where/what to eat.
Overall, there is no one method that will suit everyone. Even a way of eating that suits you at one stage in your life or level of activity might be completely inappropriate at another time. All we can do is to experiment and adapt.
My thought on the subject: turn a potential problem into a tasty opportunity. I love to cook, I love to eat, but I also love being thin (superficial I know). So I started to explore the concept of “healthier” alternatives and posting (mainly) healthy recipes. Cutting down on carbs I discovered cauliflower mash, pea fritters. Reducing on meat I found Salmon Burgers and Fish Buritto. It really has turned into a great adventure.