One thing on which we both can agree: sugar is bad and high fructose corn syrup is worse

Alec Baldwin has undergone an amazing transformation in the last few months.  This is Baldwin at peak pudgy:

And this is Alec Baldwin today:

What’s even more impressive than this transformation is Baldwin’s claim that he dropped all the weight in four months, primarily by leaving sugar out of his diet:

Baldwin, who’s dating yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas, tells “Access Hollywood,” “I gave up sugar. I lost 30 pounds in four months. It’s amazing.

“(I do) Pilates, spin, not as much yoga as I’d like. When we’re shooting (‘30 Rock’) it’s tough… When we’re shooting and I can’t work out, I just have to eat less. So, I’m very conscious of that. But sugar was the real killer for me – that was the problem.”

In one of those frequent coincidences I so often see in the internet world, within minutes after reading about Baldwin’s weight loss, I returned to an email thread in a conservative group to which I belong.  The thread had made a fascinating journey, traveling from poor grammar (specifically, the loss of the declaratory in favor of the interrogative), to the feminization of speech, and then to chemicals in food that may affect boys’ hormonal development.  The last email in the thread, the one that arrived immediately after I read about Alec’s “I gave up sugar” statement, was about the dangers of sugar generally and, more specifically, high fructose corn syrup.  The author of the email made his argument against sugar compelling by including pictures that precisely echo Baldwin’s photos:  he went from middle-aged plump to trim and muscular, not through surgery and time travel, but through sugar control and exercise.

My friend linked to Peter Attia’s War on Insulin site, and said that it changed his world.  I have to admit to being intrigued.  Last year, I gave up flour (which transforms into sugar in the body) and felt better, although I lost at most three pounds.  By the end of the year, though, I’d slipped back into my old ways.  The War on Insulin approach, however, is better rounded than just giving up foods, and that may be what I need.  It’s not even so much about the weight gain, although I’d be happy to drop the last baby fat (13 years after the baby was born).  It’s also about feeling better.  I feel draggy, and draggy people don’t get black belts.

Aside from finding the whole thing very intriguing, I thought it was incredibly funny that, in a country that is currently experiencing a very deep, rancorous political divide, one that splits it pretty much straight down the middle numerically, two people from opposite ends of the spectrum (my conservative friend and the liberal Alec Baldwin) can find common ground in the world of low-glycemic diets.