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February 25, 2008

Body Modification

When my parents were visiting at Thanksgiving, they listened to a webcast of the science radio show Quirks & Quarks (excellent show, by the way). This particular episode featured an interview with Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories. Taubes, who is a science writer, not a diet seller, says that all the actual medical research he could find indicates that the way to lose weight is to cut carbs, and the prevailing advice to cut calories is based on a biblical notion that you need to suffer in order to lose weight.

I had heard this before; it's what the Atkins diet is based on. I had previously suspected, as I wrote a long time ago on a website far, far away, that cutting calories was the key to losing weight, and the Atkins diet was really just a clever way of making you consume fewer calories (by making you pay attention to what you were eating, mainly). But Taubes was saying no, that the "3500 calories is one pound" rule was a myth, and it really was about cutting carbohydrates, not calories.

At the time I had just signed up for my foray into acting, and I figured it wouldn't hurt if my character looked a little emaciated. So, I decided to try cutting out carbs, while eating whatever protein and fat I wanted, and see what happened. I didn't buy any books, just looked at nutritional labels and tried to get carb intake as close to zero as possible.

So what did happen? Well, I certainly enjoyed the delicious omelettes with prosciutto and bergenost (courtesy of Costco) that I would whip up in the mornings. And I was able to use the fact that I was conducting a scientific experiment as an excuse not eat a bunch of junk I didn't need to over the Christmas holidays. BUT, although I did lose about 5 pounds in a couple of months (with my carb avoidance trailing off gradually towards the end), I still felt like I was also eating less, in particular at work because I would wind up not eating half my meal, and also because I essentially cut out all desserts. So it really wasn't clear if it was the carbs or the calories. Also, although I wasn't overweight to begin with, there certainly was no "the weight just melts off effortlessly" effect. In the end, the experiment was inconclusive.

I did one other body modification for the play: I grew a goatee. Originally it was going to be a beard, but the director decided that a goatee would be better.

After the last show I shaved it off. This is the before and after view; to frighten the children I stopped at an intermediate point with just the mustache, which I don't think I would ever wear out in public:

Posted by AdamBa at February 25, 2008 09:02 PM

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Posted by: havehoage at April 15, 2008 01:44 AM