MEET THE NHS DOCTOR WHO HELPED THEM
needing to lose weight), on the advice of nutritionist Jenny Phillips, she began to cook gluten-free food. This meant banishing Giancarlo’s favourites of pasta, bread, pizza and profiteroles. To begin with, he was bereft. ‘But, within three days, he started to lose weight,’ says Katie. ‘He was also brighter, less sleepy and his energy came back.’ She researched low-carb diets and discovered a GP, Dr David Unwin, who had achieved successes in reversing type 2 diabetes among patients in his Southport practice. She asked if he would collaborate on a cookery book and, with Giancarlo, they produced The Diabetes WeightLoss Cookbook, serialised in the Mail this year. Five years after his diagnosis, tests showed Giancarlo’s diabetes was in remission. ‘By 2017, he had lost 3st and no longer had numbness in his feet or blurred vision,’ says Katie. Crucially, Giancarlo also relishes his new way of eating, and low-carb options — among them courgetti spaghetti, pan-fried king prawns and vegetable ribbons, salami with air-dried salted beef and grilled veg — now feature in the menus at the family’s restaurants in Bray, Berkshire, and Marylebone, London. Katie, too, has shed a stone in weight (she is now a healthy 10 ½ st) since going low-carb. She was, she says, acutely aware of her family’s propensity for weight gain — her adored mum Elizabeth became obese in old age and was suffering from health problems — among them vascular dementia and high blood pressure — when she died at the age of 86. Elizabeth was also an excellent cook, and it was she who imbued Katie with a passion for food. Her father Jim ran his own bookshop, but the business struggled in the Eighties. ‘My parents lost everything,’ says Katie. ‘I was at art school with an overdraft and they sent me £10: such a generous gesture when they had so little.’ Meanwhile, her mother continued to ail: she had a knee replacement and, at size 24 and weighing 22st, was urged by doctors to lose weight. But the dietary advice she was given, Katie realises, was illinformed. ‘Mum was advised not to have so much butter on her bread, so she changed to low-fat spreads.’ These are now known often to contain high levels of fats associated with heart disease. ‘Mum would have been better off cutting down on bread and putting butter on her vegetables instead.’
KaTIE had wanted to become a chef, but back then, there were few opportunities, so she pursued her passion for painting. It was art that drew her to Giancarlo when she was commissioned to paint a mural for his London restaurant.
‘He says as soon as he shook my hand, he decided that he was going to marry me and we’d have two children,’ she smiles.
They set up home in two cramped rooms above the restaurant and Katie began working in its kitchen, acquiring the skills that have equipped her to run their cookery schools and restaurants.
Eleven years ago, they moved to their current home, where Katie’s parents lived with them until they died. In her parents’ former sitting room, she now writes her books — 13 to date.
a low-carb diet would have helped her mum, Katie reflects. ‘I wish Mum had been well for longer,’ she says. ‘She would have loved testing recipes with me. When I lost her to dementia, it was such a blow.’
She adds: ‘It’s time we all understood what food does to our bodies. Few of us realise that a serving of basmati rice has the equivalent effect on blood sugar levels as ten teaspoons of sugar.
‘and few of us realise that a lowcarb diet could save our life.’