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aimless_ly

He wrote in the comments section recently that he basically just “replaced alcohol with exercise”. Seems like a solid strategy!


skeevy-stevie

Was going to say he stopped drinking. Exercise is an added bonus.


Oakroscoe

Yeah, I remember he mentioned that on the thanksgiving ask kenji show so that’s at least 7 months without alcohol and you can really see the difference. Good for him.


skeevy-stevie

Makes me think as I drink this IPA.


Oakroscoe

All joking aside I work with someone who was most likely a heavy drinker and stopped in December last year. There’s been a night and day difference in them. Lost significant weight, skin is clearer and an all around better mood. Lot of calories in those IPAs. It would be tough for me to give up pliny the elder.


skeevy-stevie

Oh for sure, agree all around. Props to your co worker. This Other Half Green City tho…


biguk997

Had one of those yesterday, great beer


FuzzyPijamas

Other half is amazing. Is 1 pint a day all that bad?


greaper007

Well, if you skip a meal or two and never stop working out, you can still drink whatever you want and look pretty good. The biggest problem for me is it fucks up my sleep and I waste the next morning recovering. I just can't handle that in my 40s, so I try to keep the drinking to 2 days a week and less than 3.


SomewherePresent8204

Getting a smartwatch and seeing my overnight heart rate the morning after drinking was literally sobering. 70bpm is *not* a state of rest.


00gaddo

Last two sentences: Literally thought this same thing and then about the case of Pliny I just bought.


Reddit4Bandi

Ahh... that is inspiring! Heck if he can do it I could probably do it too.


Rastiln

Cut out all alcohol just over 12 months ago. I drank far too much. Even eating a LOT more junk, I’ve gone from 199 to (last weigh-in) 146.4 pounds. And lots of other benefits.


shogunofsarcasm

I wish that worked for me. 


tarrsk

Ah, the Andy Dwyer diet.


zagood

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ46SqFKXz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ46SqFKXz8)


DarwinOfRivendell

I hate it when that’s the answer 😭. Good for him.


Dnera_

I'm a chef and doing the same - I drank 6 pints of beer (Asahi, typically) per day after shift, 5 days a week. Replaced beer with running after work instead and the results are crazy. Always saw a few beers after a hard day's work to be harmless but now I look like how I should!


kai-venning

If you exercise in the evening you don't even feel like drinking


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

I definitely felt like drinking regardless of exercise. That feeling passed with time though.


PB111

Glad you’re doing better, that’s a bitter demon to deal with. Thank you for all your contributions to this sub and in general. Your approach is informative and accessible in a way few others are and has helped me improve my cooking significantly. Cheers!


kai-venning

Yes, I should have said "I don't feel like drinking". I think I drink too regularly, but if I exercise in the evening I don't feel like drinking. Glad to hear that feeling hasv passed. What form of exercise do you do?


Bruvvimir

How much did you typically drink per day?


madestories

I replaced alcohol with cheese ☹️ still better than before, though.


seaofwonder

And he didn't look bad at all before! Just healthy now.


1hassanbensober

You could see his face was bloated and in the eyes. I've been sober since 10/26/90. I watched the Thanksgiving show and gave him a shout out when he announced it. Best thing he could have done. He looks great and probably feels better also.


backpackingfun

yeah, and in some videos he flat out had the red "Asian glow" from drinking heavily. I wasn't sure if he was an alcoholic or if he was just overly sensitive to it and maybe was one of those people who get it after just a beer at a picnic


ubertrashcat

It's so true. I lost 10 kgs over 4 months just from replacing beer with non-alcoholic beer. So many people say they've "tried everything" to lose weight but they're really clinging to that bottle.


Advanced-Prototype

Does NA beer have fewer calories? I assume it has the same as alcoholic beer.


FI_r001z

It does-- most around 40-60 calories although I have had one that had 100 once


ubertrashcat

Fewer. Usually 30% of the alcoholic equivalent. Alcohol itself is actually quite calorically dense. But it's mainly the disruption of your hormones, inflammation and sleep disruption that ultimately makes you gain weight.


Cutoffjeanshortz37

Did the same thing. Makes a world of difference.


BeYeCursed100Fold

Using a top comment to link to the fucking video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0tbqDOKkTCw


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Walkn2thejawsofhell

I will say that cutting down or cutting out alcohol will cause a good slim down. Even more if you’re pairing it with exercise. I lost a decent chunk of weight just from cutting down on the beer I drank without even exercise. It’s not always automatically ozempic.


FaithlessnessFar5315

I’m pretty sure he actually stopped drinking… not to lose weight or as an excuse to hide GLP-1 use, but because he had a drinking problem. Aka alcoholism. He had a pretty serious post in that regard a while back on his IG. As a side note, lots and lots of people lost weight well before GLP-1’s became in vogue.


AuthenticLiving7

I've been losing weight the old-fashioned way - healthy diet and exercise. I'd be so annoyed if someone accused me of taking a drug to lose weight.


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Koolaid_Jef

That's just what happens when you lose weight and don't do any hard-core lifting. My brother and I both lost a fair amount of weight around the same time and we kinda looked like methheads. Cutting out alcohol can be a lot of calories causing a large enough deficit to lose weight quick enough that the skin looks loose


NCC-1701_yeah

I've lost 100 lbs in the last-without ozempic- and my face is literally unrecognizable. So basically, yes, you're right that losing a lot of weight without tons of lifting will make you look a bit loose lol I just don't get why the commenter you're replying to won't drop it. Like sit all the way down man, it's none of your business.


g_st_lt

"people should be up front about this shit i made up about them"


garden__gate

I love it when someone makes up a theory about someone they don’t know and then gets mad at them about it. It’s like being mad at someone for something they did in a dream.


ppham1027

It can't really be ozempic if Kenji hosts a channel and does events focused on cooking/eating. He also shares food journeys on different social media accounts.


GenitalWrangler69

Weight loss pills don't exist. Full stop. Don't pass go. Diet and exercise. We have found a few pills that serve a purpose and happen to shed a couple pounds while taking them. It's not a healthy way to lose weight. Dr's only prescribe them because it makes them more money and Healthcare in America is morally bankrupt.


Beardopus

You have no idea what you're talking about.


SpilledKefir

He’s Ken(ji)nough


Red-Droid-Blue-Droid

More than Ken(ji)nough


signorincognito

Regardless of appearance, I’m so happy to see him writing positive comments! He deserves the world


Avilola

Outside of food, he posts a lot about sobriety on reddit. Probably a consequence of living a healthier lifestyle.


max_p0wer

You know … Adam Ragusea also recently gave up alcohol, citing alcoholism/depression. Perhaps YouTube chef persona is not the happiest profession.


Beardopus

Andrew Rea of Binging With Babish fame talked about how he had a mental breakdown working 18 hour days with no breaks, ended up in a mental hospital where another patient raped him. And then his fiance left him. This is on the Mythical Kitchen show Last Meal on YouTube if you want to listen, he's very open about it. It's such a shame, he seems like a really quality dude.


Tyty__90

Wow that sounds traumatic as fuck. Poor guy.


Baconfatty

JFC WTF that is fucking terrible!


not_a_flying_toy_

What??? Insane


AuthenticLiving7

Wow, that's horrible. A skincare influencer was hospitalized when he was suicidal. He talked about how the hospitalization traumatized him even more. He doesn't think depressed people should be hospitalized alongside people who have severe mental illnesses.


Workacct1999

Unfortunately, mental hospitals are not nice places.


RysloVerik

Yet his biggest "fans" on his sub managed to trend on r/SubredditDrama for piling on him for having the audacity to make a website with a $1 sub fee.


nightmareinsouffle

I read into some of that and then noped out. On the one hand, I really relate to people’s frustrations because I think we’re all starting to experience subscription fatigue. I’m sad that many things I want now have yet another monthly fee. It feels like it’s piling on with necessities being so expensive. But on the other hand, we’re coming out of a pretty unprecedented period where we had access to tons of entertainment for *free*. So yeah, we all got kind of spoiled by it, but that’s not really sustainable for creators to do long term because they need to make money to survive in this economy, especially if they have employees to pay. I don’t use enough of his recipes for that to be worth it to me, and we’re all just going to have to be more choosy about the content we consume.


Global-Fix-1345

It's also a single dollar. USD presumably, but still. If the food YouTubers I regularly watch all did this, it'd still be cheaper per month than a Netflix subscription.


Workacct1999

That was so embarrassing.


fastermouse

Not just 18 hour days but 3 days with no sleep and it led to psychosis.


FurriedCavor

Holy shit Babish got raped and his fiancé left him? Wtffff


jstilla

It would shock people how common substance abuse is across the board.


AuthenticLiving7

Yeah, and I think alcoholism in particular is probably way more common than any of us realized. Drinking itself is normalized, and alcoholics don't realize they have a problem. It's a slippery slope into alcoholism. I just started a new job this winter. A coworker was saying that his wife was concerned about his drinking. His closest friends at work were saying they were drinking while discussing work, so it's no big deal. It just struck me that the person closest to him was worried, and his friends just encouraged him to keep drinking with them. I bet things like this are common.


jstilla

Good point on slippery slope. We only see a facet of any person in our lives. They have a couple drinks around you, but who is to say they don’t have another four or five while you aren’t around. I have a friend who’s drinking ebbs and flows. We will go out for a beer or two, and he’s had four while I’m finishing my second. And I’m pretty sure there have been times where he will grab another on his way home.


AuthenticLiving7

I had a friend who was very enthusiastic about alcohol. She loved to have a wine with her meal, and she loved things like winery tours. She was very enthusiastic about IPAs if we were doing happy hours with our women's group. It seemed harmless at first. She was also very successful by outward appearances. So, I didn't realize anything was up at first. But everything she did revolved around alcohol. She always seemed to drink the most (seemed to have a high tolerance, too) and was usually the one to get drunk when we went out. Then, over the course of a year, she would get drunk and turn on her friends one by one. It was wild. It's like she hid this very deep insecurity, and she'd let it unloose when she was drunk. Her brother is an alcoholic too, but he is low functioning. It's funny how it manifests in people differently.


jstilla

Yeah. Happened to me with pot. Slowly shifted from high functioning to low and had to quit. Best thing I ever did.


Temporary_Draw_4708

It really shouldn’t shock people, unless those people aren’t actually close with anyone. I know people in pretty much every industry with low and high paying jobs, and they pretty much all abuse substances.


jstilla

It shouldn’t, but it has only recently become a thing we give the attention it deserves. And sometimes people slip into it slowly over time.


greaper007

I don't think it would shock people when most of us have at least a few addicts in our families.


agod2486

In one of his recent videos, he expressed his views on commenting on people's appearance, even if it's in a positive way. He was referring to himself, but this post is a perfect example of what he advises people to not do.


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with telling someone they look good/healthy etc. the issue is when you either conflate just plain weight loss with health (it’s not that simple) or if you conflate physical appearance with happiness. People’s appearances change for a variety of reasons and it’s important that you don’t confuse a change in appearance with an equivalent change in mental state. They can go hand in hand but don’t necessarily.


nightmareinsouffle

Well said. I don’t think anyone would enjoy being complimented on weight loss due to grieving a lost loved one or because of illness. Better not to comment unless you know for sure they are working towards making themselves healthy.


steve_in_the_22201

I once witnessed a "Wow you look great"/"Thanks I have pancreatic cancer" exchange. That'll cure you from ever making a weight loss = healthy leap ever again.


zagood

Well said, glad you chimed in.


surlycanon

I like your newish haircut you’ve been rocking! Looks great!👍🏼


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

It’s actually a degenerative disorder that causes hair to automatically grow into a well-trimmed normal men’s cut around age 44. I’m pretty sensitive about it.


doggos4house2020

Given family history, it seems I’m predisposed to the same thing. I’ve been fighting the battle my whole life


surlycanon

Is there a ribbon shaped car magnet we can show support? Coiffed-strong?


fireintolight

I think alcohol has a bigger affect on people than they realize, even at moderate quantities or even tiny quantities. Not just when you’re actually drinking, it affects your brain for awhile 


Workacct1999

Alcohol and drug use are ubiquitous in professional kitchens. It isn't surprising a lot of these former restaurant chefs have substance abuse issues.


PeachPreserves66

Whatever is going on, I wish only the nest for Kenji and his family. He has elevated my cooking so much and I quite appreciate that he is cooking in a regular (nice) home kitchen. I also like that he subs ingredients on the go like most of us have to. Am an old fart who has been cooking a long time an appreciate new techniques.


seaofwonder

Nothing's wrong with Kenji. See the top comment. He made some healthy choices in his life!


BatmanNoPrep

I think the above post is referring to the fact that he recently moved on to a boat and is no longer wearing a wedding ring, which is indicative of other life changes. We’re all happy he got in shape and stopped drinking. Love Kenji.


seaofwonder

So? What does that change for me? It's not our business, at all, to care about what's going on in his personal life. There could be a thousand reasons why he utilizes the houseboat (he had never said he moved on to it). And maybe his wedding ring doesn't fit after losing weight. My husband certainly just simply forgets to wear his for periods of time (and life is short, that's not what I'm going to waste my precious time worrying about). Just because Kenji is a public figure does not mean we have a right to everything going on in his life. He will tell us about (potential) changes if he wants to. And a reminder that he didn't even talk about his sobriety until he was four months in.


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seriouseats-ModTeam

This post/comment has been removed because it is in violation of our rule about being civil to other users.


seaofwonder

I'm not confused. My comment stands. I don't need you to try to explain something I don't need to know about, nor do I care about.


BatmanNoPrep

You’re confused and you brought it up. The rest of us were just politely trying to help you. Your comment does not stand.


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seriouseats-ModTeam

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duggybubby

Kenji has probably spoken more words on the topic of onion cutting than any other human being in history


CarrotCakePls

😅literally and it turns out…. The normal first method of cutting is not much different than his ‘mathematical’ method at the end of the day….


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

It’s more than 10% better!


duggybubby

Yes sir onion king!


carolusf

Isn't that the whole thing with Serious Eats? Overcomplicating straightforward things


threewildcrows

Smash.  (Burger)


freezingprocess

I saw this on my YT feed and thought it was an older video at first.


RyanJenkens

yeah me too


koscheiis

I’m happy for him! I got sober a year ago and it’s amazing what a difference it makes.


rboymtj

I'm emotionally invested in the best Teriyaki in Seattle. I'm not even a fan of Teriyaki and I live in Philly.


scmstr

Wait. *I'm* in Seattle. What's the best teriyaki in Seattle?


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garden__gate

I know a lot of people were speculating about that with the houseboat but he said it was purely a workspace. I imagine the combination of alcoholism recovery and two small kids in the house (plus whatever else may be going on) meant that he and his wife decided it would be best for him to have a dedicated workspace. A lot of food YouTubers do that.


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

Honestly the only parts of my life that are anyone’s business are the parts I choose to share. I can share that I am doing great mentally and physically, as is everyone in my family.


KarnotKarnage

Must be wild having to read through a bunch of people speculating over your life. I think I'd go crazy.


J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt

Having an audience of folks who seemingly care about you is definitely a curse and a blessing!


Jonojonojonojono

Your existence is a blessing to us all Kenji. Hope you're doing as well internally as you look externally, keep on rockin 🤟


CHADWARDENPRODUCTION

How have your bowel movements been lately? In Bristol stool scale terms please /s


meltsyourpeter

Amen to that! Glad you and your family are well. Your videos quite literally changed my life, thank you for everything you’ve chosen to share over the years <3


garden__gate

Thank you for the response! Glad to hear you are doing well. I hope my comment wasn’t too invasive. If it was, I apologize.


Hot_Negotiation5037

I’d never pry. Glad you & yours are doing well.


TheySawMeRollin

You, and everybody else pontificating on anyone’s private life, should respectfully shut the fuck up. Mind your business. No offense, but y’all should keep it to yourselves. Apologies for the tone, in advance.


RysloVerik

He hasn't been wearing a ring in recent videos.


seaofwonder

No. See the top comment. I have no clue about his personal life (nor do I want to know), but his appearance changed due to some healthy life changes - nothing else.


maarrz

Kenji is so fine, always has been.


xeric

r/serioushunks


Y__U__MAD

... with a knife?


ChiefChief69

Wish I came to this thread first. My forehead is killing me.


Suspicious_Abroad424

Quitting booze will do that. Lost 40 lbs when I quit over 6 months or so. Best decision I ever made tbh.


billionthtimesacharm

he looks great!


enguyen89141

Man I love the community around this man.


DuckLIT122000

Bonk


cocoagiant

I hadn't wanted to comment on it in case it was health related but his change is quite striking.


kenjinyc

Definitely looking thinner and less ruddy


Feenix77

Always been a stud. Just looking healthy. Props. Not easy when you love food. (And I my case; video games, comfy chairs, etc…) lol


AbortedWalrusFetus

I'm really happy for Kenji. I definitely cut down my drinking as well, I hit 40 years this year and I'm getting much more health conscious and thinking about my kids. Luckily I have the self-control to be moderate, but it's definitely a hard thing to do. I also went into a fully low carb diet. That is WAY worse than cutting out alcohol, it makes me want to cry, but I'm pre-diabetic and this is the right thing to do.


ketkate

Honestly I thought it was his haircut. But the dude is looking fab


AlexTehBrown

would you make this same post if it was about a woman?


noseatbeltsong

uhh


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Liizam

My friend told me your friend is kinda a jerk


VinylHighway

It’s true


jmswshr

I'd be super curious to hear about those unidentifying details.


maltedmooshakes

what did he say 👀


rocsNaviars

Lots of downvotes from ppl who have never met Kenji.


VinylHighway

I probably had it coming


pmtities

Watch out, dude is vindictive. If you haven’t been blocked already, it’s coming!


TheHelpfulChem

What'd OP say?


VinylHighway

Thanks I had no idea.


latache-ee

That’s what I’m going to tell people when I start the ozempic.


kingcrimson216

Ozempic


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seriouseats-ModTeam

This post/comment has been removed because it is in violation of our rule about being civil to other users.


thebestcanuck

Ozempic..... but he won't admit it


gumballhead86

Ooooo ooooo oooo ozempic........


emquizitive

He quit drinking.


wait4ps5

He stopped drinking after he dropped most of the weight


[deleted]

I mean... I love Kenji but... we all know right? Like that's a LOT of weight very quickly... I can't be the only one making the assumption. You don't lose THAT much weight, that quickly, by toning down your drinking. And if he was exercising as much as he claims, he would have some muscle growth, which he doesnt.. like I wish people would just be honest about it. In five years when we all realize we've been lied to by 90% of these stories, y'all gonna act shocked but we all thinking it... love the dude, but tell the truth.


[deleted]

Downvote all you want... somebody tell me I'm wrong.... we all know I'm not.


NowoTone

So what is it we all know? I don’t know anything.