My diet and "Eat to Live Forever"

GIllian McKeith next to a cracking buffet.

The idea of wanting to live forever is pretty horrific.  Carrying on in to your hundreds whilst everyone you've ever cared about has already passed away.  As with the Tom Hanks character in 'The Green Mile', it would feel like a punishment (even if you did have an immortal pet mouse to keep you company).

In his documentary aired last week, "Eat to Live Forever", food critic Giles Coren found plenty of people whose very aim was this.  If not live forever exactly, a desire to live until at least 150.  A very old age, no doubt, but certainly not one that would make as catchy a title.

In his quest to find entertaining television weirdos he of course heads to America.  I've always found there to be quite enough weirdos in the UK myself, so I'm not sure why documentaries always have to head across the pond to find them.

Maybe this is something UKIP could take up as a cause.  Nigel Farage being interviewed saying "this is a waste of license fee payers money travelling to find strange foreigners.  What we say is British nutters for British TV shows!  I suggest that if the BBC are struggling to find any unhinged lunatics, they should just come down to our next party conference".

In America the first people Giles meets are Paul McGlouthin and his wife, of the CR Way (a.k.a. the calorie restriction way).  They believe that to live a long and healthy life the secret is to eat a calorie restricted diet.  The average man is recommended to eat 2500 calories a day, but they say it should be 1800 instead.

This is not an idea that is new to me.  Many started to understand this concept following another documentary on the BBC back in 2012 - "Horizon: Eat, Fast and Live Longer".

Presented by Dr Michael Mosley, this documentary looked at the health benefits of fasting.  What attracted me to the findings of this program was that everything discussed was done through a scientific process.  This wasn't just hearsay.  It was this documentary that really launched the concept of the 5:2 diet.

To give you an idea of my own dieting, I started making a conscious effort to look after myself around 5 years.  Following my partner at the time I started doing Slimming World.

To boil it down to it's basics, the concept behind Slimming World was that you have 'free food' (lean meats, pasta, rice, legumes, etc) and 'super free food' (most fruit and veg).  You had to aim to have at least one third 'super free food' to two thirds of the 'free food'.

The key to this was that there was no weighing or points counting, you basically ate as much as you wanted until you felt genuinely full.  If you ate within these limits you could eat as much as you wanted and you would lose weight.  The group 'weigh-in' session I went to each week showed that this was genuinely true.

Not to say it was easy of course.  All the naughty food, like chocolate and booze, was given a 'syn' rating.  You could only have up to 10 syns a day.  Or, like me, you could save them up over the week, then on the weekend do a murder.

Seriously, after no biscuits for a week you would be ready to stab someone, so that's barely even a joke.

I must say though, this diet did work well for me.  Over about 6 months I ended up slowly managing to lose about one stone in weight.

But then I watched the Michael Mosley program and discovered the 5:2 diet.  The concept is simple.  On 5 days in the week you eat normally, and on 2 days in the week you can only consume 600 calories (500 for women).

Having never been a dieter that counted calories, it took me a bit of effort to work out what I could eat that would fit in to these limits.  After a process of weighing foods and using MyFitnessPal to check on calorie levels, this became my meals on a fast day:

Skip breakfast

Lunch - A tin of Mackeral in tomato sauce with spinach leaves

Dinner - fillet of cod with steamed brocolli and cauliflower

What I discovered was that with using veg you could have quite a plateful within the calorie limits.  Other than that I was having fish so I had a source of low cal protein, as protein tends to fill you up more.

It seems that for everyone who does this diet they have different good and bad points for them personally.  For me, the bad points were a lack of energy in the afternoon, and, I'm reliably informed by my girlfriend, a tendency to be a little snappy in the evening.  No surprise there, I am literally starving!

Another problem was dehydration.  I would drink plenty of fluid and feel fine throughout the day in that sense.  At night though, I would either end up having to get up in the middle of the night at least once for the toilet because of how much I had drunk, or if I stopped drinking long enough before bed time, I would end up feeling really dehydrated in the night.

It was like my body wasn't able to keep hold of the water like it would normally.  Again, I'm sure that's part of the starvation process.

The point of the diet though was mainly in the overall health benefits.  When Dr Micheal Mosley did it he found he went from being overweight and bordering on diabetic with very high cholesterol to having very good blood levels and losing weight.

The weight loss is the by product of fasting rather than the point really, although without doubt this is why most people give it a go.

In terms of my own health, a recent blood test showed that my cholesterol was 2.9 - very good.

Also, combining the 5:2 intermittent fasting along with my normal diet conscious of the Slimming World ethos and regular exercise meant that in total I went on to lose 2 and a half stone in weight.  I went from being overweight at over 15 stone to going down to 12.5 stone.

So, with everything combined, I've done pretty well.  I don't want to live forever, but hey, I want to have a good go at it and not be ill or in excessive pain whilst I'm at it.

Spot the odd one out

Back to the documentary and Giles Coren is on his calorie controlled diet.  One thing you notice about Paul McGlouthin and his associates from the 'CR Way' is that, frankly, they don't really look healthy.  Unsurprisingly, they are pretty skinny.

At one point McGlouthin congratulates Giles Coren on how good his skin looks, a way of saying how well the calorie restricted diet is working for him.  All you can think while he says this though is 'well, Giles might look well, but your skin looks awful!'  And it really did, unfortunately.

Writing them off as nutters isn't really fair, lets just say they are a little eccentric and a bit overpowering in their interpersonal skills (well, he was anyway, not so sure about his wife...).

Giles went to visit various other groups, including fruitarians (or just 'Fruits', really) and a Doctor who promotes the idea of 'faecal transplants', which involves squirting a healthy persons poop up your own backside to get all the good bacteria from it.  It looks like there might be something in that, but hey, maybe not for me quite yet.

What did look interesting though was the 'paleo' lifestyle.  The paleo diet is essentially a caveman diet.  You only eat what a caveman might have done.  So that means no cultivated food such as those containing flour or oats, and instead eating meat, fish, fruit and veg.  Anything processed is out, including sugar.

So this means no sweet snacks at all, no sugar in drinks, etc.  The main thing really, is no carbs (so no pasta, rice or bread).  That's the tricky part.

Yes, in the documentary the paleo community do come across as something of a cult, even with their own 'Jesus' leader figure.  The fact that you can call people linked only by a diet a 'community' seems extreme enough in itself.

Also, a drawback is that there seems to be very little science in understanding the true benefits or flaws of the paleo diet.  If I had one major criticism of Coren's documentary it's that the whole thing is a bit 'science lite'.

Yes, he has a Harley Street Doctor on call to discuss each diet, but she is only able to give the conventional scientific response.  As we know of the fasting diets, conventional medical advice would be to definitely avoid fasting, but the science definitely backs it up.

All this said though, I am attracted to the paleo diet.  The main reason was seeing so many people talking about how fit and healthy they feel.  Full of energy throughout the day, no problems sleeping, looking great and burning fat.  Even with looking online I have struggled to see evidence from people who have tried it and suffered.

But still, the Science is not conclusive.

What I have decided to do then is give the full paleo diet a go for a full month, to see how it effects me.  My bloods are already very good and I could have them tested again after the month has passed.

I'm even considering setting up a new blog to keep a diary of how I get on.  If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know.






EDIT - Well, I have indeed decided to try going paleo for a month.  My first day was today and I've set up a dedicated blog so I can keep a diary of how I get on, which you can find here - paleochallenge30days.blogspot.co.uk

Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson - 'Common assault' not 'common sense'

Right wing populists are rarely out of the news in Britain, but this week has been dominated by them much more than usual.

On one hand you have UKIP party leader Nigel Farage getting in to trouble for essentially calling for equality legislation to be scrapped in an interview

Whilst at the same time Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended for allegedly punching his producer on Top Gear.  For both of them the same pattern has emerged - those who like them will defend them to the teeth, those that dislike them call for their heads.

I know that sounds obvious, but it's still irritating.  As a Socialist I'm far on the left, so you can guess my opinion on Farage and Clarkson - I'm not exactly a fan.

But you soon realise that when you espouse an opinion about either of them that mocks them you are only playing to the choir, you will only have people respond who completely agree with you already.  It seems impossible to actually effect, let alone change, anyone's opinion on these two.

Same thing the other way round.  Clarkson has been accused of punching a colleague at work.  As such he has been suspended following an investigation.  Because of the suspension the BBC are considering cancelling the rest of the current series of Top Gear as he wouldn't be available to film and, frankly, it would be weird to just go ahead without him.

So far, so clear.  I think we all know that if you're accused of assaulting a colleague at work you will be, at best, suspended as the allegation is investigated.

And yet there is a (currently) 600,000 signatures strong petition calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be immediately reinstated.  WHAT??

There are many arguments that can made to suggest that Jeremy Clarkson shouldn't be on TV.  He has a rich history of controversy already.  But all that to one side for now, as it stands at this time, he has been accused of punching a colleague at work and so has been suspended.

WHAT IS THERE TO ARGUE AGAINST?  Without making comment about his guilt or otherwise, how can anyone argue against him being suspended?

And yet, here we are, with a petition signed by over 600,000 people who have decided, with no need for any form of evidence whatsoever, that Jeremy Clarkson should just be reinstated.  The reason why?  Because they think it is all a conspiracy.

Right wing blogger Guido Fawkes started the petition, and wrote in The Sun on Thursday explaining why.  Now, someone like Guido Fawkes is very hard to satirise because his language is so absurdly reactionary that he himself appear to be an ironic joke.  But he's not, he's very real.  To give you an example, he said he loved Clarkson for all the reasons:

"...a bunch of Left-wing pinkos at the BBC have been out to get him for ages"

Seriously, "left-wing pinkos"?  What is this, 1950's America?  McCarthyism on the march once again?  What a bizarrely archaic term.  But then this comes from the same lexicon in which Tory Ministers also pluck the term "pleb" from (allegedly/probably), so maybe not that surprising.

The BBC Trust meet to discuss Clarkson, yesterday

The point is they think Clarkson is subject to a conspiracy where the liberal-lefties at the BBC are out to get him.

Top Gear, in it's current form after being revamped in 2002, has been a massive success for the BBC.  The programme is estimated to have around 350 million views per week in 170 different countries.  Do we really believe that the BBC would want to kill off this cash cow?

Of course not.  Yes, Clarkson can cause them all manor of headaches, but the figures speak for themselves.

I suppose the reason they might have suspended him, and I don't know if I've mentioned this, is because he is accused of punching a colleague whilst at work!!

Meanwhile on the other side of the green in this village made up entirely of idiots lives Nigel Farage.  A man who is pure Marmite, both because he divides opinion but also because he is the by-product left over from a process, in this case mainstream politicians stoking up racism and anti-immigrant sentiments.

In an interview that has just come out with Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Farage was questioned on his views regarding the existing Equalities legislation.  His response:

"I would argue that the law does need changing, and that if an employer wishes to chose, or you can use the word 'discriminate' if you want to, but wishes to chose to employ a British-born person, they should be allowed to do so.  I think you should be able to chose on the basis of nationality, yes.  I do."

So he suggests that discrimination in employment should be allowed.  Unsurprisingly, there are many who didn't take well the suggestion of rolling back legislation that we have had in place in one form or another since 1965.

Sadique Khan, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said:

"when my parents moved to London they frequently saw signs saying 'no blacks, no dogs, no irish' and what UKIP is suggesting would take us back to those days"

The bizarre thing is, that since the contents of the interview became public causing Nigel Farage to do some backtracking, he and others in UKIP have presented data in interviews that are indeed sympathetic to those suffering from racism.

One UKIP candidate interviewed on the radio gave the statistics about how much harder it was for young black men to find employment than young white men, but still went on to say that the equalities legislation was unnecessary because "people can just use common sense instead".

In practice they're saying is "we know that racism exists, but we think the best thing to do is just get rid of the legislation designed to stop it".

Now, I tried to find the exact details of that radio interview I heard, but it's impossible to find.  Trying to goggle phrases like 'UKIP candidate defends Farage' throws up so many stories from soooooooooooooooooo many gaffes, it is impossible to wade through.

I might as well have goggled 'pieces of hay that look like needles'.

But again, there are so many that will jump to his defence even though the position seems indefensible, and they will say it's 'common sense' whilst they do it.  That's the most egotistical thing of the populist right.  I can argue my politics quite vigorously, but I still realise that I am putting across a certain political point of view.

They believe that they are not merely arguing a position, but that what they say is what 'everyone is thinking'... it's common sense.  How egotistical is that?

When asked about his views after that interview Nigel Farage said that UKIP as a party was 'colour blind'.  As they are still arguing that jobs shouldn't go to foreigners, can we call that 'blind prejudice'?

At least he doesn't wear jeans and a jacket...

As a caveat to this piece I suppose I should point out that Nigel Farage has not himself signed the petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson.  When asked about it he said:

"It seems to me that as boss of Ukip, if I punched one of our press office – it’s tempting at times, I have to say – but I’d be in very, very hot water indeed and I would without doubt be suspended for a period of time pending a disciplinary hearing.

So I think people signing up online saying Clarkson should be re-employed are doing so really without any knowledge of what went on or whether there’s any history there, so as far as I’m concerned the jury’s out, but I’m not going to worry too much for Jeremy Clarkson."

So to everyone who has signed the petition calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be reinstated, you are potentially being more reactionary then Nigel Farage.  That should be a sobering thought for you, but I don't suppose it is unfortunately.

Book review and podcast

Hi folks

I haven't had the time to write a full blog this week, but here are a couple of things that I've been up to instead.

First up is a podcast I was a guest on called 'The Cock Inn'.  A mix between a topical comedy panel show and a pub quiz, we discussed 'that' dress, plucky woodpeckers and the pitfalls of being santa.  You can listen at:

https://www.mixcloud.com/TheCockInn/the-cock-inn-episode-6/

You can also find it on iTunes.

Also, I provided a review of 'Jebel Marra' by Michelle Green for the latest online edition of Now Then magazine, which is an arts and culture magazine for the Manchester area.  Don't worry if you don't live in Manchester though, because the book is collection of short stories set in Darfur during the civil.

And yes, it is a right laugh!

Ok... clearly not.  But I did like it.  You can read my review at:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/manchester/issue-17/books/

That's all from me for now, I'll have a new blog at the end of the week.  Thanks for reading.