Tag Archives: diet

The croissant diet, update

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Since someone took the time to mention in a comment that he found this blog because of my croissant diet post …

It’s been over a year now and yes. I think there’s something to it.

when people eat butter like it’s cheese …

As I mentioned in my first post, if you ran into me you probably wouldn’t think “overweight,” but my entire life I’ve had a tendency to put on extra pounds. As I’ve gotten older especially, I’ve floated at the upper end of what would be considered a good weight (based on hip:waist ratio).

I’ve kept things under control by watching carbs, periodic keto, and intermittent fasting. I work out (lift heavy things) twice a week and am fairly active otherwise. I use a standing desk to write.

But in 2018-19, everything stopped working as well. It seemed harder and harder to keep those few extra pounds from creeping back on.

So when I learned about the croissant diet, I thought, “hmmm.” Brad seems smart. He looks at the science. As a keto-literate person, I’m not shy about ingesting fats, but the more I dug into Brad’s blog posts, the more I started wondering if my issue was the kind of fats I was eating.

Keto/primal typically gives the green light to olive and avocado oils. And yes, unless you are scrupulous about keeping a food diary or updating a tracker app, it’s hard to attribute weight gain to diet with any real precision. But I was eating a LOT of monosaturated fats. Half an avocado nearly every day for breakfast, cooking with avocado oil, drenching salads in olive oil. All good for you, right?

I was eating a lot of bacon.

So I made the switch. Quit those oils entirely for several months. Cut way back on bacon (I know — eep). Cut back on chicken and pork, and when I did serve them, I’d cook them in generous amounts of butter or beef tallow. (Memory: my grandfather adding a little real sugar to his coffee after the saccharine “to take the devil out.”)

Began dousing vegetables liberally with butter and/or tallow. Started snacking on butter. See pic :)

And guys, something started going right with all this. I am down several pounds from my peak 2019 weight, and I seem to be stabilized. I’m not struggling to keep it off.

I still do all the other things I’ve been doing all along. I do a 20-24 hour fast 2-4 times/month. I don’t gorge on carbs, but I also don’t avoid them entirely. I eat bread once in a while. I eat popcorn (with butter!) once in a while. I drink beer once in a while, although I’m careful with that, favoring tequila neat or dirty gin martinis :)

Your mileage may vary.

But I’m in. And psyched that Brad is now raising low-PUFA pork. It’s about time someone did — I’ve been worried about the fat profile of chicken and pork for a long time (ICYMI, they’re both fed grains, so even organic versions tend to be high PUFA).

Firebrand Meats CSA/subscription here.

And I’m almost afraid to do this, because I’d rather hoard this find to myself … but the crackers in the photo at the top of this post? The are called Finn Crisps, and I found them after hunting for a store-bought cracker, any store-bought cracker, that’s not made with industrial seed oils. If you buy a case of nine boxes on Amazon the cost is under $3/box. So, not too bad. And the ingredients: rye flour, water, salt, yeast.

Nice crunchy vehicle for those slabs of butter :)

An idea so crazy it just might work …

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The croissant diet.

butter croissant diet brad marshall fire in a bottle
I will love you and squeeze you and call you George.

No. Really!

So there’s this guy Brad Marshall … (who I believe lives in Upstate or Central New York) (already a huge plus in his favor, of course).

He’s a science guy and a foodie guy. From his bio: genetics degree from Cornell University. Culinary Certificate from The French Culinary Institute.

He got interested in how our mitochondria handle fats.

You can read all about this here on his website, Fire in a Bottle.

Here’s my probably scientifically sloppy if not outright erroneous short version: the type of fats we eat affect signaling by the mitochondria in our cells. Eat saturated fats (butter!) and the signal says “burn fat.” Eat polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oil :p) and the readout says “store fat.”

Seriously, go to this guy’s site and read. I started here, Introduction to the Croissant Diet.

(Subtitle: OR: How I eliminated my spare tire by eating croissants using the six scariest words in the english language: saturated fat, insulin resistance and free radicals. lol)

Warning: when you click you will find yourself surrounded by a ton of science and chemistry. Not being a scientist, I had to read everything 2-3x before it started to fully come alive in my brain.

But wow, it makes so much sense.

And now I have a holiday project. Taking a break from the olive and avocado oil. Hello butter and MCT oil.

Not gonna change anything else. Not going to worry about the carbs.

Full disclosure. If you ran into me in the street & looked me up & down, you’d never think “overweight.” But I have had a tendency my whole life to put on weight, esp belly fat. Keto and intermittent fasting keeps it under control. But I’m always looking for new hacks …

Plus this is going to fun. And delicious.

Who’s with me? :D

Update: 20 months later and I’m a believer.

I’ll have some OJ with that

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I’m a non-breakfast person. I’m not hungry when I wake up. I drink a single mug of coffee. A glass of orange juice. Then several hours later, I have something to eat.

Turns out I’m on the cutting edge of a trend.

“No clear evidence shows that the skipping of breakfast or lunch (or both) is unhealthy, and animal data suggest quite the opposite,” wrote Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging — and possibly the ultimate anti-breakfast iconoclast — in the medical journal The Lancet last year. Advice to eat smaller and more frequent meals “is given despite the lack of clear scientific evidence to justify it.”

Mattson hasn’t eaten breakfast in 20 years, since he started running in the mornings. He says he’s healthy and has never felt better.

He admits his studies are still preliminary. But already his findings have attracted a cadre of followers who started to skip breakfast once they heard of his results. Meanwhile, a diet plan that involves breakfast skipping — the Warrior Diet — is attracting followers worldwide.

Being Balanced, the article (from the Toronto Star) [UPDATE: link no longer good] later quotes other “experts” listing all the nutrients you miss if you don’t eat that bowl of fortified cereal on the morning, blah blah blah. And experts saying that if you skip breakfast you’ll overeat later and end up fatter than before.

Well, guys, how about this: everybody’s biochemistry is unique. What works for one person might not for another. Layering roof brain chatter over something as fundamental as the signals one’s body sends when its hungry or needs a certain type of food isn’t the answer & never will be . . .

A treasure trove of chewy information

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Okay, now this just has to be useful. The Social Issues Research Centre has published a timeline of dietary advice.

Where else can you read that in 1861, the cookbook Christianity in the Kitchen warned that pie crust made with butter or lard was both indigestible and un-Christian?

Or that it was once considered wise to fear fruit?

(“What’s that? OMG an apricot! And I think it’s begun to roll this way. Run! Run!”)

(Dontcha just miss the 19th Century?)

“Intuitive Eating”

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My mom read a piece about this guy in her local paper and clipped it to show me when we gathered at my folks’ for Christmas.

He’s discovered, lo and behold, that if he doesn’t beat himself up about what he eats, he doesn’t gain weight.

If you don’t believe that I was the first one to have that idea, just ask Mom, she’ll tell you. It was in the 80s btw, predating this book by Evelyn Tribole: “Intuitive Eating”” by a decade, at least.

I’ve got it documented in any case. I wrote an essay about it that was published in this Chicken Soup for the Soul book about weight loss.

Only my version has a dog angle too, heh heh heh. I had a lively mixed breed at the time, named Brett, and I’d been coming to the realization that, with dogs, it’s better to reinforce what they’re doing right than play Obedience Commandante, chasing after them yelling no no no no no all the time.

It’s less stressful and, wonder of wonders, also makes for a better-behaved dog.

Next it occurred to me that if focusing on the positive worked for my dog, why not try it on myself? So I stopped punishing myself for eating “junk” and started noticing how nice it was to eat nutritious food that tastes good.

I’d “dieted” myself up to about 25 pounds over my ideal weight but it came off, slowly but surely, as soon as I committed to my new attitude.

I’m not necessarily in favor of the label “intuitive eating,” however. I know the concept of intuition is very trendy, but if you’re emotionally sensitive and even worse kinesthetically oriented, you end up with a lot of inner data to sort through, and I’ve never been able to isolate “intuition” from everything else.

In any case, you don’t need it. If you are worried about your weight, you need to de-charge the whole issue. Do that, and the rest will fall into place. Don’t do it, and you’ll keep proving your self-identity as “person with a weight problem.”

Or put another way, behavior follows intent — just like a dog’s behavior follows its trainer’s.