I don’t care what anybody tells you, carbohydrate addiction is real and millions of people are dealing with it on a daily basis. This is one of the common themes of everything I do with “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” and I’ll keep shining a light on it for as long as I have this platform. There’s an extremely strong pull towards eating unhealthy junk foods that are full of sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates (what I refer to as “carbage”) that many find next to impossible to resist. Believe me, I was there myself back in my 400+ pounds days.
Prior to 2004, I’d easily go on a daily binge eating upwards of two boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes, 16 cans of sugary Coca-Cola, sausage and egg biscuits from McDonald’s, gigantic soft cookies and bear claws from the local 7-11, and much worse that I’d rather not even think about anymore. The old Jimmy Moore was a constantly hungry man trying desperately to find nourishment in foods that were doing a lot more harm than good for his body. When all you are eating is carbage, your body will send your brain signals to keep feeding until the nutritional requirements are met (which they never did since I wasn’t eating well yet).
Instead of calling these jaunts of feeding myself what became my normal everyday diet “binge eating,” I simply called it “eating.” It was just how I ate and I didn’t care a bit in the world what impact that was having on my weight, blood sugar, insulin or health. This was simply my way of life and the beast had to be continually fed at virtually all times or I’d crash. I shudder to think where I’d be today if I didn’t come down from that severe carbohydrate addiction that had me in what was sure to be a death grip unless I changed my lifestyle dramatically. Sadly, I believe that horrific way I was eating and living my life nutritionally is a lot more prevalent in our society than anyone would care to admit. That’s why I’m so thankful for the great work of people like Julia Ross, Dr. Jacob Tietelbaum, Dr. Nancy Appleton, Dr. Scott Olson, Karly Pitman, Pam Killeen and many others doing fantastic work helping those caught in the crosshairs of sugar and carbohydrate addiction. It is nothing to play around with.
While I’ve talked about my own experiences and share success stories of people like this who overcome their addiction to lose weight and get healthy quite often on my blog, I’ve never been able to point people to anything that adequately personifies carbohydrate addiction better than what I’m about to share with you today. And it features a big-time Hollywood actress who you wouldn’t think looking at her on the outside that she has any sort of problem with this…but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing her say in an appearance last week on Episode 6 of the popular interview-based BBC One television program in the UK called “The Graham Norton Show.” Norton was asking Jessica Biel about what she did to get into shape for a role in a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall. Here’s the entire video footage of what she said it took for her to get into shape along with some very revealing insights into what she did to cope with that healthy eating she was forced to engage in preparing for this physical role:
On the surface, most people will see this video as funny and it certainly has some comedic value because of the entertainment factor built into the show. But when you look deeper at what Jessica Biel was sharing, it gives you a better perspective on what it means to be carbohydrate-addicted better than anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve provided a transcript of the salient quotes so you can see exactly what I mean. Here’s Biel describing the diet she was on to look the part for her role in Total Recall.
00:21: “You’re on crazy diets and it’s the hardest experience, it really is. Cuz, you’re eating a lot of boring stuff. Chicken breasts and, umm, vegetables all the time.”
Chicken breasts and vegetables? What’s so “crazy” about that Jessica? Sure, I’m sure if you grilled up a dry chicken breast with no butter or salt in a skillet sprayed with Pam and eat steamed broccoli every single day for every single meal, that would be quite “boring.” While it is indeed low-carb and will help you shed the pounds, there’s a lack of fat in the diet that is essential to making low-carb work optimally. When you cut the carbs, you gotta increase the fat to serve as your fuel source. Otherwise, you won’t feel satisfied with what you are eating and will become more susceptible to craving foods you definitely should not be eating. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that plays out so often in people who go on a low-carb diet and unnecessarily cut the fat down as well. The danger in doing that is described perfectly by what Biel said next when she described all the sugary carbohydrates she missed when she ate her “boring” diet.
00:33: “It’s cakes and pastas and breads and sandwiches and croissants and it’s just like (hand gesturing) in your head all the time that’s all you can think about.”
Well, of course it is! When you deprive your body of the food it wants, then you will start having carbohydrate cravings. But I would argue that the food your body REALLY wants is dietary fat. We heard the story on my podcast several years back from a New Zealand-based mom named Rachel Tomkinson whose baby Jenna was so fat-deprived when her mom didn’t feed it to her that she instinctively grabbed a stick of butter out of the shopping cart and started sucking on it. Fat is exactly what Jessica Biel needs to be eating in her “boring” diet along with some tasty herbs and spices to spruce it up (there are an abundance of fantastic recipes from Linda’s Low-Carb Recipes that would keep it interesting for her). That would keep her satiated and calm the cravings for carbohydrate-laden foods quickly. Unfortunately, when you don’t add fat to your low-carb diet, you succumb to the intense cravings and “crack” under the pressure of carbohydrate addiction. When she was asked by Norton if she ever gave in to the temptation, her response was shocking to say the least.
00:43: “Oh yes, absolutely, once a week at least. But you don’t crack just (slight pause) like slightly. You crack bad. I was with my girlfriends we were out in New York City for a night, it was the cheat day. I saw Dunkin’ Donuts. It was just one of those weird…I said ‘pull the car over, pull over right now.’ We pulled over all decked out. We ran in I got 24 donuts. Went to the pizza joint and got two giant large pizzas and I sat in that car and I put as much bread and dough in my mouth as I could possibly manage. It was the best moment!”
O…M…G! I’ve heard of having a “cheat” day and she admits in the interview that she has “at least” one every week. But TWO DOZEN DONUTS AND TWO LARGE PIZZAS!!! Are you kidding me?! Yes, she is gorgeous and looks absolutely fantastic on the outside. So obviously what she is doing seems to be working for her. But that kind of binge eating is worse than anything I have ever done in my life! The fact that she called this her “best moment” was just icing on the proverbial cake that made me very sad for her. Here’s a role model for kids and someone who is looked up to because of her status as a Hollywood star basically telling kids to just let yourself go and eat up whatever you want with zero consequences for such actions. The potential harm this could have on the health and weight of people who love Jessica Biel is frightening to imagine. She wasn’t quite finished yet sharing just how deep her carbohydrate addiction has gotten that has her resorting to doing something so grotesque that you’d have to be addicted to actually do it.
02:14: “Have you ever done the walk down the hallway at the hotel at night and taken somebody’s old room service off the floor? Oh I’ve done it, yeah! You can’t leave a French fry like that!”
Alright, it’s official now. If you didn’t notice it before now, then this should confirm it–Jessica Biel is a carbohydrate addict and a half! Who in their right mind would eat leftover French fries off of a room service tray?! Yes, I realize this is an entertainment program that’s supposed to be entertaining…but I have no doubt in my mind she’s dead serious about doing this. When you deprive your body of fat while cutting the carbohydrates as she did eating chicken and veggies for her movie role, what do you expect?
And if somebody with the physique and image of Jessica Biel eats this way even on occasion, how many average, everyday people are eating like that too because they’re failing to feed their body what it is starving for…literally? This is why I am such a strong supporter of a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb lifestyle change. When you consume plenty of healthy fats naturally found in cuts of beef and fish, butter, coconut oil, full-fat cheese, cream and more while monitoring your intake of protein to your specific bodily needs based on how much you exercise, and limiting your carbohydrate intake most of the time to mostly green leafy and non-starchy vegetables, then you knock out the cravings for carbohydrates and have no desire to eat 24 donuts and two large pizzas in one sitting ever again. Where did she put all of that food anyway? Sheez! That kind of eating will catch up to her metabolically someday soon and she’ll find it won’t be as easy for her to recover from the damage that’s been done anymore.
What do you think about this prime example of carbohydrate addiction that Jessica Biel has outlined for us in this video? How can anyone deny it isn’t true after watching her admit that she binges on carbs when she is trying to eat healthy? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this in the comments section below.
12-7-11 UPDATE: Some of the people in the comments section have expressed doubt that Jessica Biel actually ate all of the donuts and pizza herself. I found this article from February 2010 where she ate 10 donuts in one sitting in the morning and then 18-20 chocolates that afternoon. She’s even been on Jay Leno eating chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate-covered pizza, and chocolate-covered cricket. This kind of crazy eating is certainly indicative of an issue that runs very deep and will catch up to the Hollywood starlet someday.
