Issue Date: May 23, 2004
Look who's living low-carb
From Jennifer Aniston to Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, celebs are buying into the low-carb craze, many with the zest of Paris Hilton on a shopping spree. But don't call it a "diet" -- in the celeb world, it's a way of life. While some of us bemoan the disappearance of the bread basket from restaurant tables, the star set relishes low-carb eating as a way to stay trim without self-deprivation.
For our cover story this week, "Law & Order" star Elisabeth Röhm talks low-carb summer food with Food Network chef Bobby Flay. The pretty blonde eats strictly low-carb, but not just so she can fit into Assistant D.A. Serena Southerlyn's trim suits on the long-running NBC show. For the German-born actress, it's much more about avoiding processed foods and feeling good than about losing weight.
"I'll never be the thinnest girl in the room," says Röhm, who traded the heavy dumplings of her childhood for low-carb fare. "But I want to do a lot of things in life, and more protein makes me more energetic."
Röhm doesn't subscribe to any specific diet. She eats mainly meat or soy products, cheese, peanut butter and vegetables because carbs leave her feeling "empty and nauseous," she says. And on the "Law & Order" set, she and co-star Sam Waterston order healthful meals from a nearby restaurant. But she admits her guilty pleasure is pastry: "I can eat eggs and meat and cheese, but if I settle in with a good bear claw, I feel like my mother's going to come and strike me down!"
For most of Röhm's peers, it's the fear of size 2-minded casting directors that sends them running to their low-carb plans. These days, they have a bunch from which to choose, with Atkins, the South Beach Diet and the Zone topping the A-list.
Jennifer Aniston reportedly lost weight on the Zone, which husband Brad Pitt and "Friends" co-stars Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc also have tried. Renee Zellweger used a variation of the veggie-friendly plan to lose the extra pounds she gained for "Bridget Jones's Diary" and for the sequel, which is due in December.
The South Beach Diet helped Bette Midler shed unwanted weight, and it let Bill Clinton lose his post-White House pudge (Hillary has tried it, too). The former president reportedly gave up junk food on the plan and has looked considerably leaner in recent months.
Atkins -- the 32-year-old daddy of all low-carb diets -- lists Minnie Driver, Dennis Franz, Stevie Nicks and former U.S. secretary of Energy and current New Mexico governor Bill Richardson among its satisfied followers; the last three lost nearly 30 pounds each. And a pre-"Apprentice" Donald Trump reportedly used Atkins to slim down -- but only after he bet a friend $100,000 that he could.
Of course, with money comes a diet advantage: It's easier to stay disciplined when you have a personal chef or a gourmet service delivering your meals. Monica Lynn, founder of the New York-based low-carb delivery service 5 Squares, has delivered to Laura Linney ("She was making a movie ["Kinsey"] and ordered for herself, her makeup artist, her hairdresser and a cameraman"), P. Diddy ("He wouldn't eat salmon or onions, and we delivered to his Park Avenue apartment but weren't allowed to put his name on the package"), and former New York Mets first baseman Mo Vaughn. Lynn, whose cookbook "5 Square Low-Carb Meals" comes out next month, says Vaughn was her favorite star client. "I went to spring training to work with his chef and his trainer last year," she says.
Halle Berry, who has Type 1 diabetes and is therefore very careful with her diet, hired L.A. personal chef Stephanie Goldfarb to prepare veggie and meat stir-fries, low-carb chicken parmigiana and other low-sugar dishes for a month last year. "She liked a clean, fresh and lean diet, with a lot of Asian influence," says Goldfarb, now co-executive chef of L.A.'s Pure Foods Low Carb Cafe, the first of which opened last month in Beverly Hills.
Goldfarb and her Pure Foods co-executive chef, Marissa Mitchell, are known for creating improvisations of standards, such as Mitchell's whipped cauliflower, a favorite of renegade director Quentin Tarantino, and Goldfarb's "unfried" chicken (breaded with soy flour and baked). "My clients have always maintained low-carb, low-fat, low-sugar regimens," Goldfarb says. "It's just easier now, because there are so many more options."
Frappa Stout
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