What I learned from Alton Brown

The other evening, Robert and I were able to attend a one hour Q&A with Alton Brown this week. He was promoting his new book (Good Eats, the Early Years), and rather than give a prepared talk, he just took questions from the audience. Pretty far into it, someone asked him how he'd manage to transform himself. If you're familiar with Alton Brown, and you haven't seen him recently, you may be surprised to know he's lost nearly 50 pounds since March. He looks great.

He said, "I realized there was this hole in my head, and when I filled it with crap, my waist got bigger". Of course that got a laugh, but he went on to say he really decided he needed to treat his love a food like an addiction, and as with all addictions, "moderation" doesn't cut it. You don't give a heroin addict just a little bit, he said. The key to success for him, however, was in his food log that he started before embarking on any diet change. He wrote everything down, and a normal day would include cake and cookies, and that was before lunch. But as he wrote EVERYTHING down, he'd see things like:

"Entire sleeve of Girl Scout Cookies. Glass of Milk."
"Half a carton of ice cream. Glass of Milk."
"4 cupcakes. Glass of Milk."

So, he did what anyone might do. He stopped drinking milk.

What he realized was that everything tastes best with a glass of milk. And when he stopped drinking the milk, the other things weren't as enjoyable as they used to be. It's a trigger food for all the other bad stuff. Before too long, he was able to limit himself to having sweets only once a week. After a month or so, he realized he didn't need the sweets at all. So, he's off sweets, when before, they were huge in his diet.

I was really interested by all this. The things I got from this were (1) Know your trigger foods and (2) you can really change some habits, especially eating, by extinguishing it over time. I was thinking of this tonight, as I came home from the gym, and feeling that some of the things I've been doing have been getting a bit easier. I've also had a bit more energy in the gym, and a bit more enthusiasm for things.

I'm not sure I've really made any real changes in my fabric or if I've really changed any of my habits for good yet. But I can feel that I'm closer to it than it was, and that feels like a good thing. There's a lot left ahead of me, but I'm still on track to get better.

Thanks for reading!