Scott Ostler:
How Warriors center Andrew Bogut dropped 22 pounds over the summer and improved his game.
Cool cherry cream and a nice apple tart I feel your taste all the time we’re apart
— George Harrison, from “Savoy Truffle” by the Beatles
Andrew Bogut can still feel the taste of galaktoboureko. Of all the desserts the Warriors’ center left behind last summer when he went sweet turkey on sugar, the memory of the Greek custard pie lingers strongest.
But for Bogut, the pain of lost love is more bearable for the knowledge that the sugar was killing him — or at least weighing him down as a basketball player.
Short story: Bogut dropped 22 pounds before training camp by going sugar-free, and he’s a better player for it. His newly svelte frame is better suited to the Warriors’ style of play. If you want to soar with the eagles, you can’t eat with the pigs.
The 7-foot center finished last season at 269, bulked up to 275 while playing in Europe with the Australian national team, and now weighs 254. Does he feel better? “One hundred percent,” Bogut said. “Way better. I just feel lighter, I feel like I’m moving better, I recover better the next day. Feels great.” Does he play better? “He’s more active, he’s more agile, moving a lot better,” forward Draymond Green said. “You can just see him on the offensive glass, he’s getting his hand on every rebound.”
Assistant coach Ron Adams works a lot with the big men. He sees a new “bounciness” in Bogut, better lateral quickness. Adams noticed that at the end of the game against Brooklyn on Saturday, Bogut was jumping out to guard perimeter players.
Now it’s rare to see him signaling to be taken out of a game for a blow.
Good timing by Bogut. With his advancing age (31 this month), and the ongoing improvement of Festus Ezeli, Bogut is staring at his NBA mortality. He missed six games with a concussion, and Ezeli impressed during his absence.
Bogut came back strong and returned to the starting lineup Tuesday against the Raptors. Now the Warriors’ center position is a two-headed monster, and playing time probably will swing to whichever player is showing the best energy. The skinnier Bogut has more energy than last season’s model.
How did he do it? Simple. While back home in Australia after Europe, Bogut happened to watch a documentary, “Is Sugar the New Fat?”
Bogut realized he was eating too much of a bad thing. Also, he was being played for a chump by Big Food and Big Drug, which conspire to plump their profits by poisoning the world.
As noted UCSF nutritionist Robert Lustig says, “The food industry makes a disease (like type-2 diabetes), and the pharmaceutical industry treats it.”
Bogut instantly decided to take a stab at a sugar-free diet — which also means no bread.
“I just wanted to give it a try for a week or two and see how it feels,” Bogut said. If felt bad. “The second day, by 4 p.m., I felt like it was midnight,” Bogut said. “I was dead, I had a headache, felt loopy. Second day, still bad. By the third or fourth day, I was better, my head and everything, but I started cramping a lot during workouts. My electrolytes dropped. If it was really bad, I’d have a Powerade, but that was it (in terms of sugar).
“After about the second week, I was fine.”
He noticed something else: The pounds were melting away.
Now Bogut’s got religion. He sees sugar in almost everything.
“I was never a label reader,” Bogut said. “Now, I’m a label reader. It’s shocking to see what they pump with sugar, man. Ketchup is full of it. If you have ketchup with your eggs, and a processed juice, that’s your (maximum) sugar intake for the day.”
This poses a challenge. Bogut is no classic sugarholic, but he is a cafe goer, a man who enjoys a leisurely meal or cup of espresso while watching the world saunter past him. And any cafe man clearly knows the siren song of the dessert tray.
Nothing like a nice tiramisu after lunch, or — oh, my — galaktoboureko, with layers of baked phyllo dough drizzled with a syrup infused with lemon and orange peel.
Bogut also enjoyed his chocolate, especially Australianmade sweets like Cadbury bars and the white-chocolate Milkybar.
“We’ve just got better chocolate than you guys, quite simply,” Bogut sniffed.
But who needs it? He said his overall energy used to be a roller-coaster. Now it’s on a nice even keel, and “it helps so much.”
I asked Bogut whether he’s mad at himself for not going sugar-free earlier.
“Yeahhh,” he said, tilting his head. “But you’ve got to enjoy life, too. I ate a lot of good food.”
Now, when sweet memories haunt, Bogut can always cue up the Beatles’ “Savoy Truffle”:
You know that what you eat, you are
But what is sweet now, turns so sour.