From the Globe and Mail Sunday, September 22, 2002
BEAUTIFUL LOSERS
MEN ON DIETS: It's not just women swapping slimming tips
at the water cooler any more, reports TRALEE PEARCE.
As guys feel the pressure to stay lean into their 40s and beyond, they're turning weight loss into the latest testosterone-charged measure of machismo
TRALEE PEARCE
It was a lazy Labour Day weekend of sunning and swimming on Georgian Bay when a half-dozen thirtysomething guys found themselves comparing bellies.
All agreed it was time to tackle their emerging paunches. Their stereotypically male approach? To put their money where their mouths are.
Paul Brooks, one of those present, says each guy chose his own goal of 10, 20 or 25 pounds. "It was a bet," he says. "The loser -- or losers -- who haven't achieved their goal by New Year's has to pay for a group dinner at Morton's Steak House."
Hold the frites, we presume.
It's a scene that is increasingly common: Talk of Body Mass Index, carb intake and portion control is now fully acceptable water-cooler banter. Not only are more men dieting, they're dieting publicly.
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld famously lost 90 pounds last year and is publishing a book with his diet doctor next month. Art Cooper, the editor-in-chief of men's mag GQ, has lost 55 pounds since January and boasted about it in The New York Times. CNN host Larry King has written an intro (along with curvy chef Nigella Lawson) for new Brit diet book The Obvious Diet (Arcade Publishing) by literary agent Ed Victor. Canadian TV host Mike Bullard lost a clean 40 and is now a TV pitchman for his diet doc, Dr. Bernstein.
The fact that manly man Pat Quinn, head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, has dropped 45 from his imposing physique only adds to his aura of power.
Heck, actor Matt Damon probably clipped this week's US magazine item about him eating "like a model" at his Harvard roommate's wedding, to give his diet coach as proof of his willpower. Also in that issue: Even non-portly Conan O'Brien is reportedly trying to slim down for his gig as host of tomorrow's Emmy Awards.
They're all looking over their shoulders at the next generation of health-conscious, 20-year-old go-getters, weaned on Men's Health Magazine, gym memberships and the Atkins Diet. The pressure on men to stay lean into the 40s and beyond is approaching the level women have experienced for years.
Or, as Brooks, put it: "Forty is holding the business end of a gun to my head. I might as well wage a pre-emptive strike."
Toronto-based public-relations executive John MacKay spent eight years in Los Angeles, the mecca of body-conscious lifestyle, and he has watched the Hollywood obsession with diet move back north with him.
Over lunch recently, he openly discussed the pros and cons of a regimented vegetarian diet he has been trying -- and lamented a weakness for Neilson Rosebuds, eaten out of the freezer.
"We live in a time of male narcissism," the owner of Industry Public Relations says. "It used to be inappropriate for a guy to care about dieting. If he did, it was inappropriate to show he cared."
L.A.'s culture of denial fits perfectly with the current round of corporate housecleaning: Out with the image of the rotund, cigar-chomping CEO; in with the lean, mean fighting machine.
According to Roland Semprie, co-owner of Totum Life Science and trainer to Bay Street, the perception in the corporate world is that if a man can control his weight, "he can control the members of a board or a company."
On the other hand, the perception of uber-control may be misleading. Physically, men have a distinct advantage over women when it comes to weight loss. "Men's metabolism is faster than women's in general, because they have more muscle mass," Semprie notes. "That's what helps burn the calories."
Like the perfect bespoke suit, the style of diet has to fit right. For some, knowing that Charlie Sheen is on the Zone is all they need. Brooks, who opted out of the Labour Day bet, but who is along for the diet ride, works at Vintage Canada, under the Random House umbrella. Like many others in his office, Brooks is hooked on the company's unlikely bestseller, The G.I. Diet, a resolutely unflashy book by Rick Gallop, a past president of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.
The book is in its sixth printing, which accounts for 50,000 books, and is No. 1 at chain bookstores across Canada. It will be published in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2003.
Brooks has lost six pounds in two weeks and is sharing the book with his one-pound-a-week compadres who don't want to spring for that steak dinner.
And while a few gung-ho souls may have picked up the book looking for a G.I. Joe-style guide to low-fat K-rationing, this G.I. means gycolic index, which measures the speed at which the body breaks down carbohydrates and converts them to glucose.
However, with its simple green-, yellow- or red-light categories of food, green being the best, the G.I. diet appeals to another testosterone-laden pursuit: driving. And the book is blurbed by journalist/socialite Barbara Amiel Black -- who says Gallop has been her diet coach "for years" -- watch for peacocking men to jockey for her position.
Daniel Cullen, a designer at Random House, is another convert. "I made a lot of copy changes on that book -- I literally read every word. So I picked up a few things."
Having just turned 30, Cullen decided it was time for his own pre-emptive strike.
"I'm stubborn. I'm going to stick to it," he says, despite the onslaught of birthday cakes, Timbits and free lunches that lure him each day at the office. "Men can go as full out on dieting as they can on golf. We go to extremes."
And they also like to win. Knowing that his fellow Random House-er Brooks is on the diet, Cullen looks forward to friendly one-upmanship -- something he would never try with his girlfriend, who is also G.I.-ing.
"I'm going to beat him," he says, smug in the knowledge that Brooks, at the time of my call, is out at an industry lunch where temptations abound. "I think I'll go put some Timbits on his desk."
Trainer Semprie says the most popular diets among his clients are the Atkins, the Zone and the blood-type diet. And his own, simple "No" diet: no dairy, no sugar, no refined carbs and no alcohol.
Whatever the formula, there's no doubt that the power breakfast has taken a turn.
"The new power breakfast is an egg-white omelette stuffed with vegetables or with a side of fruit," says Heather Wilgar, co-founder of DietDelivery.ca, Toronto's newest meal delivery system based on the Zone diet. Wilgar says her male clientele is at 10 to 15 per cent and growing, especially in the corporate sector.
I check in for an 8:30 a.m. breakfast by phone with one of her clients, software developer Sean O'Brien, who decided to join his girlfriend on the diet before he runs the Chicago Marathon next month.
"I started training and realized I didn't want to carry those extra few pounds for 26 miles," the goal-oriented dieter says.
He is having a crepe stuffed with berries and cottage cheese this morning -- an anomaly for a guy who admits that, like many guys, he doesn't cook.
"It's pretty good. Better than my usual coffee and bagel," he says. "I've already lost nine pounds and I don't even stick to it as well as my girlfriend."
But women need not worry that all men find dieting a cakewalk. Some just really want their cake.
On this week's opening episode of The Sopranos, viewers were faced with the prospect of a dieting Tony Soprano, who orders "an omelette, no oil, with tomato slices" at a late-night diner.
What? Our favourite tubby mob boss a stealth dieter?
After eyeing his companion's greasy mile-high plate, he calls the waitress back.
"Gimme a steak sandwich."
A guy thing
The G.I. Index Diet Random House Canada. Rick Gallop bases his book on the glycemic index, a measure of how fast carbohydrates are metabolized into sugar.
Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution Avon Books. The no-sugar and low-to-no-carb diet that relies on ketosis (the body burning its own fat) and allows steak, eggs and high-fat dairy.
The Zone: A Dietary Road Map to Lose Weight Permanently Harper Collins. Dr. Barry Sears advocates a balance of 40 per cent carbs, 30 per cent protein and 30 per cent fat.
Eat Right For Your Type Putnam.
Dr. Peter D'Adamo divides us into types based on our ancestors. Type O, for example, were hunters and should eat meat and limit grains.
The Obvious Diet Arcade Publishing. Ed Victor's diet, devised with the help of nutritionists and homeopaths, is somewhere between Atkins, the Zone and fasting.