LOSE IT LIKE TOM KERRDIGE
Three years ago, BBC chef Tom Kerridge weighed 30 stone. But thanks to a carb-free diet (and no booze) he has lost more than 11 stone. Here, Tom shares some of the secrets of his success
The TV chef shares two exclusive recipes
What is a dopamine diet ?
When I started to examine my new high-protein, low- carb diet, I wasn’t as interested in how it worked nutritionally as I was in why I enjoyed it so much.
To me, this is absolutely the key to its success. Everybody else I’ve ever met moans that diets are a pain and a struggle, but I honestly enjoy mine. I couldn't have kept going for so long if I didn’t. And it's important to keep going – I may have lost a lot of weight, but I’d still like to lose some more.
At the very heart of what I have been doing in the past 3 years is the ethos of eating as many foods that help to stimulate the production of dopamine as I can. So, what is dopamine? It’s a key chemical assisting with neural signalling in the brain’s reward hub. To put it simply, when you experience a pleasurable sensation – whether it’s from food, laughter, sex, alcohol or gambling – dopamine is released in your brain. There’s evidence to suggest that low dopamine levels can lead to decreased motivation and make us feel lethargic and apathetic, even depressed – absolutely not the state you need to be in to lose weight.
Dopamine doesn’t just appear magically in our brains. Our bodies create it by breaking down an amino acid called tyrosine, which can be obtained from lots of different – and, fortunately, delicious – foods.
In my book, there is a load of recipes that are fairly low in carbohydrates and high in tyrosine, so they will help to boost dopamine levels in the brain. This means that you will enjoy eating them – it really is that easy.