The Pumped Gourmet

Jim Shiebler, with his bodybuilder physique, looks like an aspiring Schwarzenegger but talks like an aspiring Escoffier. Cooking, eating well and maintaining a competition-ready form are his passions.

He is chef saucier at the Ritz-dsCarlton at Marina del Rey; did his apprenticeship at New York’s Le Cirque restaurant; is taping a television series, “The Body Gourmet,” to be televised on the public access channels of the Century and Continental cable companies; writes a cooking column for a fitness magazine; does some modeling; volunteers as bodybuilding coach for youth groups; is a regular at Venice’s Gold’s Gym, the world’s most famous muscle gym.

Shiebler shuns bodybuilding competitions, however. “I don’t want someone telling me my biceps or legs should look like this or that after all that hard work,” he says. “Too much on the ego.”

Even so, he works out as if he were preparing his body for judging--five times a week at the gym and three times a week in a martial arts studio. Eating up to 2,500 calories a day, he carries 175 pounds on a 6-foot frame. His body fat is between 3% and 4%.

He figures he inherited good genes, and a fast metabolism helps. But having good health and the body you want, Shiebler says, comes down to discipline and making choices.

“Feeling light and strong is worth the trade-off,” insists the 28-year-old chef-bodybuilder. “You don’t have to give up great-tasting food or eating to be fit or have a strong body.”

He tricks his taste buds and keeps his appetite stoked by stripping dishes of high-fat sauces and relying on intense flavors and contrasting textures. From his love of fruit comes inspiration for a rich-tasting sauce. Marinades, homemade fruit-spice powders and fresh herbs are keys to his cooking style. And although mint-chocolate chip ice cream is his dessert of choice when frozen nonfat yogurt isn’t available, he says a dessert of fresh berries sprinkled with fresh pepper and balsamic vinegar is more exciting to him than anything swimming in creme anglaise.

“The trouble with traditional bodybuilders’ foods is that they’re bland and boring,” Shiebler says. “Most bodybuilders don’t take the time to cook. When they eat, they want food now.”

He talks about the pleasures of cooking and bodybuilding with the zeal of a freshman missionary. In a filet mignon, he sees a way to build muscle and keep washboard abdominals.

“Eating clean [i.e. low-fat],” he says, “makes you feel energetic. When you eat rich foods, you feel sluggish, not invigorated.”

Of course, temptation goes with his job. For 45 hours a week he works with rich ingredients and is surrounded by a nonstop supply of pastries.

“I always snoop around the bakery because I trained as a pastry chef, but I usually come out with a handful of berries,” he says with a laugh.

Sugar was not brought into the home in Stony Brook, N.Y., where Shiebler grew up because of his father’s diabetes. “If I wanted something sweet, I’d have to go out and get it,” he says. His cooking career began when he was 11 and baked a Duncan Hines cake from the box. Polishing off rich food never showed up on his always-skinny frame.

He planned a career in baseball until he vacationed in Hawaii at the age of 20. The lifestyle hooked him; so did bodybuilding. To stay there, he took cooking jobs in hotels.

He nixed bodybuilding trainers and became his own by devouring muscle magazines and nutrition books. He learned by experimenting and realized that to attain the physique he wanted, he had to eat more. And more often.

The kitchen ultimately led to a career. He returned to California and entered California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After his apprenticeship at Le Cirque and a job as executive chef at Dal Baffo restaurant in Menlo Park, he joined the Ritz-Carlton Hotel group in 1993.

“Unlike many bodybuilders, whose weight goes up and down, depending on the next competition,” says Shiebler, “mine stays constant. I don’t bulk up or blow out.” He points to photos of him posing a glistening, well-defined physique.

One secret: grazing.

“I never eat breakfast,” Shiebler says. “When I go to the gym before work, my stomach is empty. It’s easier to work out that way. I graze from noon to 9 p.m.” He doesn’t have to worry about picking up stray calories tasting the food he cooks; he says that once his dishes are developed, he knows them so well he doesn’t have to taste them.

His food choices would make any nutritionist or cardiologist beam. Fresh fruits and vegetables, grains, and lean meats and fish are his fuel. So are vegetable drinks and fruit shakes. He’s enthusiastic about juicers and relies on one to make fruit and vegetable bases for sauces.

“Marinades change the texture and flavors of meats,” he says. “So do fruit-spice blends.”

To create them, he takes the pulp from the fruits or vegetables he juices, spreads it thin on baking sheets and bakes it in a 150-degree oven overnight.

“It becomes dry and hard. I chop it, grind it with spices such as cinnamon or pepper, and use it as a seasoning powder for fish, meats and poultry.”

His recipes for the hotel and for readers of his magazine column include nutritional information. He figures out grams and nutritional content of each dish in his head, he claims, not with the help of a software program.

Through his upcoming cable TV series, which will combine his message of good food and exercise, he hopes to reach a broad audience.

His advice to those who want to see results from fitness yet still enjoy the pleasures of food is to have patience. But be serious.

“Changing eating habits take time,” he says. “So does sculpting or reshaping the body. You don’t get it by wishing. Start by making tiny changes every day.

“When I first got into bodybuilding and read about bodybuilders who ate water-packed tuna straight from the can, I thought, ‘How awful. How can anyone like that stuff? It’s so dry and flavorless.’

“But the palate changes. You adapt. The craving for fat, that rich mouthfeel, the moisture that fat gives food, lessens.

“When you get used to eating clean and enjoy feeling light and agile, you think more about making choices.

“Eating rich food has consequences. I can get away with eating it and not gain any weight, but I pay by feeling slow and sluggish.”

Juggling work, the gym and a fledgling career in cooking, fitness and TV is what he wants.

“You can have anything,” he says. “It just takes discipline.”

*

The following recipes were developed by Shiebler.

BERRY PROTEIN SHAKE

2 cups berries

1 banana

2 tablespoons protein powder

Juice berries. Puree with banana and protein powder until smooth.

Makes 1 serving.

Each serving contains about:

294 calories; 294 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 49 grams carbohydrates; 28 grams protein; 2.15 grams fiber.

GRILLED CHICKEN WITH PAPAYA-JALAPEN~O COULIS

1 large papaya

2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon cold water

1/4 bunch cilantro, chopped

1/2 red jalapen~o chile, seeded and minced

Salt, pepper

1 head radicchio (cut in 1/8-inch lengthwise pieces, attached at root)

1 bunch green onions, trimmed

1/4 pound boiled potatoes

Skin, halve and seed papaya. Combine papaya skin and seeds and chicken in bowl. Marinate 1 hour.

Puree papaya meat, lime juice and cold water in blender until smooth. Pour in bowl and add cilantro, jalapen~o, salt and pepper to taste.

Grill chicken 15 minutes, add radicchio and green onions and grill 3 to 5 minutes more. Serve with papaya puree and boiled potatoes.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

258 calories; 197 mg sodium; 99 mg cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 16 grams carbohydrates; 42 grams protein; 2.27 grams fiber.

NATURAL SWEET AND SOUR HAWAIIAN GRILLED SNAPPER

This is a healthful, sugar-free version of the Asian-inspired sweet-and-sour sauce. Carrots and pineapple deliver natural sweetness. A juicer is necessary for this recipe. So is a spice grinder or blender.

1/2 pineapple, trimmed, peeled and diced

2 large carrots, chopped

1 pound red snapper

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon cold water

Salt, pepper (optional)

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Juice pineapple and carrots, reserving juices and keeping pulps separate.

Combine pulps and spread over foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees until pulp dries to crisp crust, about 2 hours. Break apart and grind to fine powder in spice grinder or blender.

Sprinkle fish with powdered pulp and marinate 15 minutes.

Simmer juices until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.

Grill snapper until meat barely flakes when poked with sharp knife, about 8 minutes per inch of thickness.

Blend cornstarch and water in small bowl until smooth. Add to simmering juice and cook, stirring constantly, until sauce is thick enough to cover back of spoon, 2 to 3 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper, if necessary.

Stir in cilantro. Serve sauce over fish.

Makes 2 servings.

Each serving contains about:

294 calories; 143 mg sodium; 67 mg cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 28 grams carbohydrates; 39 grams protein; 1.59 grams fiber.

* Plate in top photo from Tesoro, Los Angeles