Factor - Fiber for good nutrition and weight loss. By Adam Platt September 8, 2. Via Grubstreet). . Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine. Like the many experts I’ve consulted during the course of countless protein diets, Mediterranean diets, all- fruit diets, and assorted other doomed starvation regimes over the decades, Tanya Zuckerbrot exudes the kind of practiced optimism that skinny, type- A, successful professionals often do. There’s a small stone statue of the Buddha in her posh midtown offices, a soothing, white- toned space that feels less like a medical- consultation room than like something you’d see on the set of The View. There’s also a juddering, yellowish piece of rubber made to look like a five- pound chunk of fat, which she likes to use as a motivational tool; a doctor’s scale that is recalibrated every day; and, framed on the wall among her first- class dietitian degrees, a signed poster of the toothy, grinning televangelist Joel Osteen. Zuckerbrot, who charges corporate- lawyer fees ($1. F- Factor Method, often quotes Osteen to her prominent high- roller clients and has seen him in person at least three times, which, as she puts it, “is a lot of times to see Joel Osteen for a nice Jewish girl like me.”During our first visit together, Zuckerbrot gives me cheerful tips on how to avoid the temptations of the several Peking- duck dinners it’s my professional duty to devour that week (“Forget those pancakes, Adam, and just taste the skin!”), and how to behave at the cocktail function I’m about to attend (“Anything on a skewer is your best friend, Adam!”). She’s studied my first- ever “F- Factor Journal,” a slightly comical document that includes carefully recorded visits to Sparks Steak House to gorge on slabs of sirloin. She’s weighed me (a hefty 2. I am technically diabetic and a few pounds short of morbidly obese, this isn’t such a tragic state of affairs, because roughly two- thirds of the entire country is overweight or obese these days, Adam. But most important of all, I’m here today in her office, and if I follow the steps of her F- Factor diet, everything will work out. Which is possibly why, when I show up for my second session the following week, with another slightly comical food diary, penned in my tiny, earnest, indecipherable big man’s handwriting, Zuckerbrot — who is dressed, as usual, in designer clothes and a pair of red- soled Christian Louboutins — looks for the briefest second like she’s just seen a giant, overfed ghost. As anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the grim statistics on long- term weight loss knows, diets are made to be broken, especially by mountain- size professional gourmands whose job it is to consume anywhere from 3,0. As Zuckerbrot will tell me, she also has a reputation to think of (“I’ll be honest, Adam, I don’t like failure, and given your profession, I’ve had my concerns”). Plus, unlike the assorted gilded uptown housewives, corpulent Wall Street CEOs, calorie- conscious anchors, and aspiring supermodels (among many other things, Zuckerbrot is the “Official Nutritionist to the Miss Universe Organization”) who make up her devoted F- Factor flock, I won’t be forking over real money for her special, fiber- rich diet plan, which includes 2. Shake Shack line, say, or scanning the menu before ordering your omakase dinner at Nobu. Because — also unlike the rest of her clients — it was my crackpot idea to attempt to lose weight while routinely visiting the city’s finest restaurants. As the ultimate F- Factor guinea pig, I could drink alcohol on her diet (although not too much, and no sugar mixed with your spirits, please), and I wouldn’t be punishing myself with brutal cardio workouts, which stimulate the appetite. Proteins are great, but not the overly fatty kind. And because I would be taking my carbohydrates not in the normal pasta- and- bread- basket form but from an endless stream of distressingly tasteless Scandinavian bran crackers, I would feel full without tipping too far into a zombified state. I would, in the process, learn to taste my restaurant dinners instead of ingesting them, the way I was used to, like a great blue whale sucks up clouds of tiny shrimp in the deep- blue sea. I’d experimented with trendy juice cleanses, buzzy taurine- spiked protein powders, and two- day- a- week fasting regimes. About a decade ago, I’d dutifully lost 5. I’d even visited my share of what A. Liebling, the patron saint of all giant, blue- whale food writers, contemptuously referred to as slimming prisons, where I’d huffed up and down arid desert hillsides before returning to the life of leisurely, booze- filled luncheons and furtive midnight ice cream. After my latest checkup, our long- suffering family doctor, whom I’ll call Dr. ![]() P, had called with a note of alarm in his voice, sounding, it later occurred to me, like the engineer of some listing, recently stricken ocean liner, making a last, desperate call to the bridge. P and I had had our little emergencies before, of course. There was the kidney stone I’d misdiagnosed as a bad case of indigestion after a particularly fierce Sichuan dinner, and the time I returned from a Champagne- fueled junket to El Bulli with a flaming case of gout. But this was a different kind of emergency. My numbers were spiking. He was prescribing cholesterol- lowering statins for the first time, and horse- size pills to control my suddenly diabetic blood- sugar levels, and he suggested I consider making a change, after years of unchecked grazing, in what he diplomatically called my “professional eating habits.”. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This week we're talking about the recipes that defined a decade, like the Lipton onion dip of the 60s and the popularity of quiche in the 70s. Today we tackle the 1980s. I think you missed the point, my friend. This diet is so much more than that. Where did you get your research from? Online sources or books? I read your entire. Diet fads come and go; but the F-Factor approach is based on a scientific understanding of anatomy and physiology, and these principles don’t change with the tides. Fads and Trends A Part of Conversation Questions for the ESL Classroom. Related: Clothes & Fashion. What is a fad? Do you pay attention to fads? Survival knives polarise opinion – hated in some quarters, an invaluable tool to others. The Wilkinson Sword Survival knife is no exception but those who love them.![]() ![]() For a month or two, I’d tried changing my professional eating habits on my own, and even asked a few of my bemused colleagues for their on- the- job diet tips. Alan Richman, who’s managed to remain remarkably trim during the course of his long, award- winning dining career, wished me luck on my quest, and joked that the key to his good health was avoiding bread baskets and taking the stairs whenever possible, including walking several times a day up and down the staircase of his large suburban home. Mimi Sheraton said she’d added 7. Times restaurant critic during the ’7. It took her five years of light eating as a regular civilian to take the weight off, but my dining schedule was less punishing than hers, so who knows — maybe a miracle would occur. Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine. ![]() It looks (and tastes) like frozen plasterboard. Lunch is two lox sandwiches made with a scrim of yogurt and four compressed, F- Factor- approved wheat- bran crackers from Norway, which taste like dried lawn- mower clippings and have the texture of flattened Brillo pads. After another cracker snack, dinner is a visit to not one but two steakhouses in search of the city’s finest cut of New York strip, which I taste in tiny little bites while primly pushing the boats of creamed spinach and ruinous potato dishes aside. I repeat my smoothie- and- cracker routine the next day, and the day after that, and after another modest Peking- duck dinner of mostly scallions, hoisin sauce, and delectably crispy skin, and a visit to a trendy vegetarian restaurant, I take the night off and sit in front of the television in a dazed, semi- starved state, watching reruns of Naked and Afraid. Like the bewildered contestants on that greatest of all reality- TV diet shows, I can feel my stomach contracting, even after just a few days of roaming around on this new calorie- deprived savanna. Platt says suspiciously when she comes home to find me sitting at the kitchen table eating my salad and crackers, instead of standing over the sink devouring last night’s congealed restaurant leftovers, along with the remnants of the girls’ macaroni- and- cheese dinner, like I sometimes do. We discuss the concept of thermogenesis, which is the process behind her fiber- rich philosophy (whereby the body burns calories in its attempt to digest fiber), and her distaste for the way most people use the word diet (it means “a pattern of eating,” not a temporary weight- loss program). Like lots of neurotic pudgy people, I have an aversion to being weighed, so when I lumber onto her scale, I hum to myself and look up at the ceiling. She adjusts the weights, and as I keep humming to myself, she falls quiet for a time. Extreme weight loss isn’t uncommon at the beginning of diets, and given my size, this isn’t a huge amount in percentage terms. Still, this is exciting. ![]() Let’s get physical! That famous Olivia Newton John song from the 80s wasn’t just a smash pop hit, it was a mantra for an entire generation. The exercise craze of. Fitness fads come and go. Some of them help, and some we’re still not sure what they do. We’re not here to judge. The complex fiber has balanced my sugar levels while making me feel full, and deprived of the usual all- you- can- eat buffet of refined carbohydrates, my body has been burning fat. Once we build a good foundation, we will build a healthy house.”. To celebrate, Zuckerbrot introduces a new cracker into my dining routine, one sweetened pleasantly with raisins and traces of honey. She explains that the F- Factor diet didn’t begin as a slimming diet, in the usual sense of the word. She’d found her secret- weapon crackers, called “GG Bran Crispbreads,” on the dusty bottom shelf of the health store across from her apartment while looking for ways to lower cholesterol and manage blood- sugar levels for cardiovascular and type- 2- diabetes patients she was working with after graduating with her master’s in nutrition and food studies from NYU. After three months of ingesting industrial amounts of fiber, her diabetes patients found that in addition to lowering their blood sugar, they’d lost considerable weight. Soon, non- diabetics were clamoring for diet tips, and when celebrities began signing on (Megyn Kelly, Katie Couric), her career took off. On the contrary, I’ve never felt better, which is how new dieters, like new members of any sect, tend to feel during the first, heady days of conversion. I experience bizarre surges of energy, and instead of slouching off to the coffee bar for a post- lunch pick- me- up, I begin taking jaunty afternoon power walks. Here's 8+ Reasons the Paleo Diet Should be Extinct. In the past few years, the Western world has seen a wave of followers develop as proponents of the Paleo- style diet. The virtual army of dedicated Paleo- eaters are hard to miss online these days, with any Paleo- related article getting flooded with comments and arguments as soon as they’re discovered. Perpetuated by famous Paleo- endorsers such as Loren Cordain, Robb Wolf, and Mark Sisson, Paleo has turned into quite the movement. By the way, you can find their respective blogs here, here, and here. As with many fad diets in recent years, the opinions are heavily divided by people who see Paleo from a more objective angle, and those who will defend it into the wee hours of the night; some so loyal that they no doubt would be offended that I even mention the Paleo Diet in the same paragraph as the words . Voegtlin first came up with the idea. In reality, there is very little difference between the Paleo Diet and countless other low- carb diet fads that have made the rounds in the past decade. The main thing that separates Paleo from its low- carb cousins is the fact that Paleo doesn’t endorse the use of grains – not even the whole wheat variety. The Paleo Philosophy. Paleo relies on the (unproven) fact that our ancestors from the stone age (circa 1. Paleo claims that they didn’t suffer from modern- day problems such as arthritis, cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases of affluence. Rather, they were fit, strong, and healthy individuals that were much better off than us. The Paleo premise is simple; if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. Palaeolithic nutrition is based around the fact that in the 1. Admittedly, it’s a pretty cool idea. It’s easy to get a kind of romantic attachment to eating like we . When I first heard of Paleo and looked into it, it made a good bit of sense, at least at first. Being the research- based guy that I am; I had to look into it further. For 3. 0 years Paleo has taken a backseat to almost every other diet program around. The Atkins diet, the Hollywood diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean diet, and so on. It wasn’t until 2. Loren Cordain released his book . I’m not really sure why it did, but I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that it was around this same time that the similarly popular “gluten- free” movement began to spring up. The two’s rise to fame can be paralleled in the past few years, and it’s not really surprising. The two both believe that gluten is off limits – that it is responsible for a host of common medical problems, from autism to migraines. But i’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. Continuing on. Inconsistencies and the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. Paleo teaches its followers that the human diet basically took a turn for the worst as soon as the agricultural revolution got under way around 1. Farming, and the processes associated with it, have been the corner stone of the human diet ever since their inception. And, according to Paleo, this is the reason why we’re so obese today. Remember, if the cavemen didn’t eat it – then you shouldn’t either. Most notably, this means grains (of all kinds), beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, and dairy are out of the question completely for the strict Paleo Dieter. Now, if you’re thinking that it doesn’t make much sense that tubers like sweet potatoes and yams have been crossed off the list – you’re right. These were around long before the agricultural revolution, right? Even by a Paleo guru’s own logic, these tubers should be green- listed. After all, yams are an African crop that have been eaten by humans since the beginning of time. Why shouldn’t you be allowed to eat them? Potatoes have been around for 3. Paleo(er). This is interesting however, since Turkey is acceptable to eat on the diet, although it was only introduced to Europe in the 1. Perhaps the most shocking inconsistency that I came across was on the topic of grains. Yep, a publication by the Oxford University Press called People, Plants, and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity tells us there is indeed evidence that shows the nasty gluten- containing food staple known only as . A far- cry from the Paleo Diets claim of 1. Really puts a dent in the whole . Needless to say, I wanted to find out more about Paleo after learning the above. Here’s what I found. Holes and Science: Dissecting the Paleo Diet. Fundamental Hole #1: The Caveman Diet. One of the first holes that comes to mind when I think of the Paleo Diet is the fact that it relies so heavily on things that are unproven, and to- date, unprovable. The Paleo Diet is based on what some experts believe the cavemen ate. They look at historical studies and modern- day hunter- gatherer societies and combine this with a whole lot of theory. But, do we really know what caveman ate? Is there any definitive evidence that details a caveman’s universal dietary menu? The answer, unfortunately, is no. We use conjecture, educated guesses, and speculation, with only hints of science. But science is not made of “probablys” or “quite possiblys”. Rather, it’s proven, reliable, documented, and peer- reviewed. If only Bob the cavemen left his darn cookbook for us. Fundamental Hole #2: Location. Not only is much of what “cavemen” ate is still open to interpretation, but it’s highly location dependent. Just because the cavemen of modern Europe (that the Paleo Diet models itself after) are thought to have consumed a diet relatively high in meat (due to a lack of plant availability), doesn’t mean that early man in other areas of the world didn’t have a vastly different looking diet. Katharine Milton talks about the ! Kung people in an editorial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. She says that the ! Kung, an African people who live in an almost ideal hunter- gatherer environment, live on a diet that consists of approximately 6. Paleo Diet. Likewise, hunter- gatherers in other parts of the world like southeast Asia, for example, no doubt had a very different looking diet again. Due to things like geography, weather, and local vegetation and animal life, what was available to the cavemen was likely highly location- dependent. Fundamental Hole #3: Alternatives. Another glaringly obvious issue with the Paleo Diet is the fact that we can’t accurately replicate it. We are at the mercy of modern food production and distribution systems that, quite simply, are a far cry from what the caveman would have had access to. These things we find in our supermarkets have been refined over the centuries. The meat we’re buying is not fresh grass- fed mammoths, they’re cultivated hybrids nurtured on artificial fertilizers (yes, even the grass- fed variety). I had a conversation with a Paleo friend of mine the other day at a breakfast restaurant. It went something like this. Me: Why are you eating so much bacon with your eggs? Friend: It was as close as I could get to Paleo on the menu. Sausage is too processed. Me: Fair enough. But surely, eating that much bacon can’t be healthy? Friend: Well, it’s the healthiest Paleo meat that I saw on the menu. I had a bowl of oatmeal with berries sitting in front of me, and forgive me Paleo Gods for saying so, but I think that is a whole lot healthier than mowing down a heap of fried bacon. But, that’s just the predicament that Paleo forces people to confront these days. You’re not going to find freshly killed wild boar to eat uncooked. So, you do the next best, modern- day alternative. In this case, it’s a pile of bacon. No. Fundamental Hole #4: The Cavemen Suffered Much Less Diseases. A frequent claim made by the Paleo Dieter is that cavemen were largely free of the symptoms of chronic diseases, included, but not limited to high blood preasure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and insulin resistance. These are also known as the diseases of affluence, or civilization. While this statistic is largely believed to be true, it can be attributed to the fact that, due to a variety of reasons, cavemen simply did not live long enough to develop such diseases which are associated with old age. This fact is substantiated by numerous sources, including researchers from the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago. One of them goes on to say, “ there is neither convincing evidence nor scientific logic to support the claim that adherence to a Palaeolithic diet provides a longevity benefit.”Paleo followers are quick to combat this research, saying that modern hunter- gatherer communities share their paleolithic counterparts luck in the sense they seem to be immune or have very little diseases of affluence, despite a significant number of elderly citizens above the age of 6. Once again, this is countered by science. Geoffrey Cannon, Science and Health Policy Advisor to the World Cancer Research Fund says that humans are designed to work very hard physically to produce food for subsistent living, to survive periods of food shortage, and that we’re not adapt to a diet rich in energy- dense foods (like sweets, sugary drinks, bagels, donuts, ice cream, butter, steak, sausage, and fried meats). Likewise, William R. Leonard, professor of anthropology at Northwestern, states that the problems facing modern post- agricultural revolution societies stem not from deviations from a specific ancestral or . In other words, we as a society simply eat too much these days. Fundamental Hole #5: Who Says We Haven’t Evolved? Scientists from the Department of Food Science from the University of Hanover question the notion that 1. The scientists turn to examples of increased lactose tolerance in Europe and increases in the number of copies of the gene for Salivary Amylase (which digests starch) which have both occurred in the past few thousands years, to explain that the body, when necessary, can indeed adapt in a relatively short period of time. Fundamental Hole #6: Who Says Our Digestive Physiology Changes Significantly At All?
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