Having lost a hefty chunk of weight, the chef Tom Kerridge decided to share his secrets in a new book. He tells Ellen Manning why his diet plan is delicious – and might even make you happier
“There’s three things that you never thought would have happened five
years ago: Leicester City winning the league, Donald Trump becoming
President of the United States and Tom Kerridge writing a diet book.”He chuckles as he says it, but Tom Kerridge is right – nobody could have foreseen that the chef who was, quite literally, larger than life would have released a “diet” book.
You also wouldn’t have predicted that the self-confessed naughty boy would have shifted 11st and changed his diet radically, including giving up alcohol. But he has. And his fourth cookbook, Tom Kerridge’s Dopamine Diet, is one that offers a bit of help to other people trying to do the same.
Writing a “diet book” took the TV chef by surprise as much as the rest of us. It followed a decision as he approached 40 that he needed to “do something” about his weight. He did – and then realised that he might be able to help others by telling them how.
Deciding what not to do
Kerridge, now 43, searched high and low for the right kind of diet to
help him “shift a lot of timber”. He split them all into three main
types of diet: low-fat, low-calorie and low-carb.“Then I looked at how I cook, because as a profession that’s what I do, so I couldn’t let it alter that. You’re on TV cooking great food and you have a business where you’ve achieved two Michelin stars cooking food of a particular style, so I can’t do one thing and behave in another way.”
Using his two Michelin-starred pub the Hand and Flowers’ bestselling dish, steak and chips, as the acid test, Kerridge decided low-fat wasn’t for him. Neither was he happy to limit his portion size, meaning calorie-counting was off the list. But when he thought about swapping the chips for greens or a salad – or even an extra steak – it seemed quite appealing.
“If I got rid of the chips and swapped it for something else, I’m still able to eat half of what I love, I haven’t had to cook it any differently, and if I go out for a meal I’m not inhibited by what I’m ordering.”
Some simple rules
One of the first rules of Kerridge’s diet is if it’s starchy or has sugars in it, don’t eat it. But he doesn’t feel he’s missing out, instead using 25 years’ experience as a chef to “overload” everything else on the plate with flavour, whether it’s using different ingredients or finding different ways to cook things to extract as much flavour as possible.
And he says that as he started looking at the foods he was eating and
enjoying, it dawned on him that many were high in the amino acid
tyrosine, which helps in the production of the “happy hormone” dopamine,
and all of a sudden it “made sense”. That’s where the catchy “Dopamine
Diet” title comes from, and his latest book’s recipes feature some of
Kerridge’s “dopamine heroes”, such as double cream and yoghurt, beef,
chicken and turkey, and chocolate, as well other low-carb foods and
dishes.And while some of the recipes are noticeably “carb-free”, such as a pepperoni omelette pizza, others will have friends and family fooled, he says – as with his tiramisu made with sugar replacements. Plus, he still gets to have some of his favourite treats. “I haven’t given up butter,” he says gleefully. “You have eggs, you can eat cheese and pork scratchings, it’s brilliant. You just have to not have potatoes and booze.”
But he admits it’s still tough at times. “It’s painful, right. You do have to give things up, you do have to have willpower.” That includes resisting alcohol. But developing ways of coping in social situations, plus unwavering support from close friends including fellow chefs Sat Bains and Claude Bosi, have seen him through.
What the experts say about dopamine
“First of all, hats off to Tom,” says Ursula Arens, spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association (BDA). “Whatever your ‘secrets’ are, it doesn’t go without a lot of willpower, focus and determination so respect, respect, respect.”
For Arens, Kerridge’s diet is another permutation of a low-carb, high-protein diet that works for many people. But it’s the dopamine aspect she isn’t quite convinced by.
“Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and it does link to feelings of wellbeing,” she says, but adds there is little to prove a direct link between certain protein foods and feelings of happiness.
“We eat proteins all the time, they are all a mixture of amino acids, and our body is the grand shuffler of what amino acid goes where to make what. The idea that it’s as simple as, ‘eat a bit of protein and you directly affect levels of dopamine in the brain’ is not proven by a very long degree.
“But the bottom line is it works for him and it may work for others, so good luck. Exactly how and why it works is almost secondary.”
Whatever works
Ultimately, Kerridge has found something that works for him, and now he wants to spread the word. “I’m just a normal bloke – if I wasn’t a chef I’d be driving a white van delivering furniture or something,” he says. “And to be given the opportunity to write a book like this helps me to help other normal people. I’m not telling you how to do it, I’m telling you how I’ve done it, it’s a slightly different thing.”And while he’s not a lycra-clad Adonis, he is “someone who’s shifted 11st with an understanding of willpower but also an understanding that you can still love food and love what you eat rather than feel like you’re missing out”.
But with so many “diets” emerging every day, is Kerridge worried that his “Dopamine Diet” will be dismissed as a fad?
“It has the word ‘diet’ in the title because it’s based on how I lost weight and losing weight is called being on a diet – that’s just the English language. But it’s actually a cookery book. It’s been measured for carb content because that’s important because it’s a low-carb diet, but what it is is a lifestyle choice that I chose that helped me to lose 11st. I’d love people to take it on board and be inspired by it, and I’m not worried it gets dismissed as a fad because it’s not. It’s just a cookbook. Cook from it!”
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