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Making Changes In Diet Is Difficult No Matter What Anybody Tells You

Mary Ann Lindley Tallahassee Democrat

When a recent health report suggested that people who drink five glasses of red wine a day live longer, the credibility gap was finally just too wide.

Who could seriously swallow the idea of cruising through the day on, say, a nice merlot because some happy test group now contradicts all prior evidence regarding alcohol?

A friend who loves to eat but is constantly resisting something or other was ecstatic nonetheless.

“This is great!” he said. “There are finally so many studies out about what’s good for us and bad for us that with computers we can find a study to match the lifestyle we already live.”

But wait till you read the hot new book that appears to offer a way out of the nutritional maze.

A caveat: While women get diet and fitness advice all their lives, “Dr. Bob Arnot’s Guide to Turning Back the Clock” is aimed at men in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But only those who want to have the bodies and energy of men in their 20s.

Reading it over the weekend, I was reminded of that breezy Irish Spring soap commercial: It’s made for a man … but women like it, too.

I liked Arnot’s pleasant deceit: Instead of choosing foods based on what you shouldn’t eat, he says, choose foods that help build muscle, which quietly replaces fat.

That means trying some multicultural foods such as quinoa, an ancient grain now heralded as “the supergrain of the future.” It’s been cultivated for 5,000 years and once fed the Incan Empire. Today health-food stores sell it in several shapes of pasta and as the original grain, which you cook like rice.

So I cooked Veggie Curls-style quinoa as I would any other pasta, for about five minutes, then served it tossed with sauteed garlic, scallops, diced Vidalia onions, yellow squash, green peppers and fresh basil in a little olive oil. John and I aren’t madly adventuresome eaters, but we think quinoa’s light, nutty flavor is great.

And Arnot, a medical doctor and CBS’ health-and-fitness commentator, puts it at the top of his chart of recommended grains, though he knows men underrate grains, considering them flimsy fare. Their virtue is that they’re hungerquenchers and loaded with protein, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and minerals, so they both keep you from binging and help build muscle.

“Muscle is youth,” Arnot writes. In your 30s, body bits and pieces begin to fall apart, and every decade from age 40 you lose up to 6 pounds of muscle, though it may not be apparent since the size of your arms and legs often remains the same. It’s just that fat has replaced muscle.

So you help your body rebuild muscle - and avoid that ring of fat around the belly of man - by eating MORE high-quality protein (but not fatty meats) and MORE slowburning carbohydrates (not fastburning carbs such as white-flour breads and bagels that the body accepts like a sugar infusion).

By “fast-forward eating,” you keep yourself from devouring processed foods, corn syrup, white flour and hydrogenated oils - all common in foods that give us a quick jolt of energy. Instead you eat foods that help you feel full for a long time and break that low-blood-sugar cycle that which sends you rushing to eat anything that will quickly stave off fatigue, hunger, depression or anxiety.

The whole last half of Arnot’s book is on exercising, and he leads even non-athletic men to exercises they’ll want to do - by sidestepping weaknesses. Arnot looks at a big guy like Bill Clinton, for example, and says running plays to none of his strengths, doesn’t begin to challenge his muscle mass or burn sufficient calories the way in-line skates, a Stairmaster or a mountain bike would.

Arnot’s book won’t be the last word on health. But in this befuddling and self-denying place where eating is a guilty pleasure, his approach does make change seem more like an adventure than what it is for both sexes: the hardest thing in the world.