I love Alton Brown
Dedicated Food Network fans will have noticed that lovable food geek Alton Brown has exhibited a gradual but substantial shrinking over the past year–50 pounds to be exact.
Skinny Alton
To get people to stop asking him about his “diet” secrets, he featured his diet-less weight loss story and tips on tonight’s show… and man am I ever in love.
Seriously, as Alton made morning smoothies, smeared avocado on toasted bread and whipped up his own spiced almonds, Stew had to lean in to make sure I was still breathing. “Are you SO excited??” Yes. I was.
Here are the two major take aways from The Alton Non-Diet (almost in his words–I wish I had taken notes):
1. It is not a diet. Unless you look at it in terms of the Greek word “diata” or way of life. That’s what it is, a healthy lifestyle.
2. It is full of “Good Eats.”
His basic philosophy approaching his weight loss was this: Eat certain really healthy foods every single day. Eat certain other healthy foods 3 times a week. Save other not-so-healthy foods for once a week. And avoid some foods entirely.
Every Day: Things like leafy greens, whole grains, carrots, etc.
3 x Week: Things like yogurt, fish, nuts, aaand I’m drawing a blank…
Once a Week: Alcohol, red meat, dessert…
NEVER: Fast food, DIET food
Recipes featured on tonight’s show included a berry smoothie (4 oz each of soy milk, acai juice, frozen blueberries, frozen blackberries, frozen banana), sardines and avocado spread on toasted bread (with a marinade he created), and spiced almonds (recipe also on the show).
It was apparently a wildly popular episode since my blog traffic spiked the second he mentioned that almonds are the only nut included in Mayo Clinic’s 10 Superfoods since I happen to be #2 in Google on that keyword.
You also won’t be able to get the Good Eats page on the Food Network site to load in the next hour because it is so slammed at the moment.
So hooray for Alton! Congratulations on the weight loss. And I’m obsessed with you. As is Stew. In fact, we love you.
