Posted by Ed Levine, October 3, 2008 at 9:00 AM
As most serious eaters know, holidays are full of temptation for those of us trying to lose weight. I went to two Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) dinners this week, and they could have been my undoing. But in both cases, I had a plan going in that just might have worked.
I tried to fill myself up with freshly picked farmers' market apples and bananas (from farms far away from New York) before I arrived at the dinners, and I think I might have succeeded. In a week that could have been disastrous weight-wise, the apples and bananas could have saved me.
Something else might have helped as well, namely, since it was forgotten. Let me explain.
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According to the Kansas City Star, "The suit says that Applebee's Weight Watchers Cajun Lime Tilapia is advertised as having 6 grams of fat and 310 calories but when tested was found to actually contain more than twice as much fat (14.3 grams) and 25 percent more calories (401) than advertised." [via Washington City Paper]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, September 15, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Are you tired of diets that actually involve eating less and exercising? Want to replace the flavored water and grapefruit regimen with 12,000 calories a day? That would be a pound of pasta, an actual pig in a blanket, a barrel of Halloween candy, and a pitcher of Hollandaise sauce—just for one meal! Jared Fogle, of Subway diet fame, makes a cameo in this SNL sketch from the weekend, but does not approve. He seems to think results will yield a blubbery belly instead of rock-hard Olympian gold medalist abs. Video, after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 12, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I've decided that certain foods and their calories are beneath me. Bad 100-calorie packs of faux snack foods and even regular Chips Ahoy insult my palate and my intelligence, and jeopardize my longevity and continued good health. So I'm going to try to quit ingesting wasted calories cold turkey.
No more light, no more Oreos, no more generic crap that satisfies my basest, most wanton cravings. Up with deliciousness in all its forms, down with easily accessible reduced calorie junk food.
I arrived at this inescapable conclusion yesterday. I will have a ritual cleansing of my pantry this morning, throwing out boxes of 100-calorie bags of Sensible Portions Multi Grain Mini Crisps I bought a few days ago. Of course, all this will not have any effect on my weigh-in this morning. But it may help me in the future. The weigh-in, after the jump.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, September 9, 2008 at 8:30 PM
Photograph by Graciepoo on Flickr
Before food bloggers get all excited, they should read the Telegraph's story. Somehow I don’t think this works for people who are already predisposed to taking photos of their food (i.e., us weirdos).
[via Goodies First]
Posted by Ed Levine, September 5, 2008 at 8:45 AM
I don't know why, but I'm feeling kind of optimistic about controlling my weight. Tonight, for example, I set out to eat half a burger, a salad, and a few fries for dinner. And I did it. And then, my wife came to my rescue when she came home and ate the other half of the burger. She saved me from myself and my worst impulses.
I managed to do the same thing for lunch. I avoided the bread basket, ate half my sandwich and a couple of pickles. The other serious eaters were thrilled, of course, when I brought back the other half of the sandwich—a magnificent chorizo, cole slaw, and cheddar combo—to SE HQ.
Anyway, two successful attempts at moderation have buoyed my spirits, and as I said, left me feeling hopeful. Of course that might change when I weigh in.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 29, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I write this from Cape Cod, where I drove yesterday to meet my wife and mother-in-law, who just turned ninety. I've decided to take the week off from my Friday weigh-in. Don't worry, I am still profoundly aware of what I eat. My mid-week weigh-in had me up two pounds, to 247, so it has not been a good week so far. But I hope just 'fessing up to all of you will help me stay on track here, where in the land of my mother-in-law I can sometimes fall prey to bouts of mindless overeating. I'll be back next Friday with a more complete accounting.
Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, everyone.
Posted by Ed Levine, August 22, 2008 at 9:20 AM
The week didn't get off to a very good start. Saturday we went to visit friends in Block Island, off the coast of New London, Connecticut. Beautiful place, and our friends Arietta and Sam really showed us a good time, food and otherwise. Arietta loves to bake, so upon our arrival, she presented us with a platter of amazing chocolate chip cookies. The next day we had scones and a cobbler from a pretty good farmer's market baker for breakfast, excellent burgers for lunch, and lobsters and corn for dinner. Anyway, you get the picture. A fine relaxing weekend with good friends filled with good food.
We got back Sunday night. I got on the scale Monday morning and discovered I had gained two pounds on our little Block Island Idyll. So I've been playing diet catch-up all week. What does my idea of diet catch-up mean?
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, August 21, 2008 at 10:30 AM
This video funded by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Service's Small Step program features Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor (filmed before they won yesterday) plugging healthy food. Along with the cast of the animated Christian show 3-2-1 Penguins!, the women promote their idea of a "balanced" diet—one drastically different from that of fellow American athlete Michael Phelps.
Says Kerri Walsh:
My favorite snack is a banana because it gives me all the energy I need to before a big match.
A banana? No three sandwiches of fried eggs, grits, French toast, and chocolate chip pancakes? Phelps would scoff. Then he would eat a banana as if it were the Runts candy version. Watch the banana-promoting video after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 15, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I've been posting about my diet for more than half a year now, and I think it's time to take stock in the bigger picture. As I write this I weigh 246 pounds, which is 19 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest (265), which was well before I started posting about my diet travails.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
I have lost 8 pounds in the 29 weeks I have been posting specifically about the diet. Using various metrics I have encountered in recent years, and knowing my own body, I would feel great and look good weighing 225 pounds. That is my ultimate goal, and I think it's attainable.
The Revised Plan
At this point, you're all probably sick of hearing how hard it is for me to lose weigh—especially when all kinds of delicious food are in the way. There's only so many ways to express that thought. At the same time I think having to weigh-in every Friday morning has been really good for me. Come Wednesday, I start getting nervous about facing all of you when I jump on the scale. So this is what I'm going to do.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 8, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I just came back from an overnight business trip to Chicago, a city I'm crazy about. How do I love the Windy City? Let me count the ways. It's a city of distinct and diverse neighborhoods; it's full of cool, architecturally interesting buildings; listening to Chicago blues helped get me through college; and yes, Chicago is a great food town.
So what's a serious eater to do when he knows he's headed to Chicago on business? Normally, I would just obsessively research the eating options and plot my days bite by bite. But knowing I had to post this morning and get on the scale to do so, I realized that was a recipe for disaster (pun intended).
So I tried to have my cake and eat it, too, diet-wise. That means my strategy was explore, eat in moderation, and exercise.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 1, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Upon my return from the nonstop eating extravaganza that was our West Coast excursion to Portland and San Francisco, I immediately got back on the horse (not the scale), dieting and living-wise.
Last Friday and Saturday I truly, truly ate lightly, so when I did summon up courage to get on the scale Sunday, imagine my surprise when Mr. Scale said I had actually lost a pound since my last weigh-in.
In a way, getting that favorable digital read on Sunday was counterproductive, as it probably gave me a false sense of accomplishment. Even more problematic was that I still had five days before the next weigh-in, which, as you all know, is about to happen.
I had a few hurdles to overcome this week:
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 25, 2008 at 8:45 AM
I'm writing this from a hotel room in San Francisco, where my wife and I are wrapping up a six-day working vacation that included stops in Portland, Oregon; Bolinas, California; and San Francisco. Yesterday you read about my visit to the awesome Apizza Scholls in Portland. In the coming days I'll be sharing the results of my nonstop food forays in Portland, which included stops at the extraordinary Portland Farmers Market; a fantastic brunch at a catering company's kitchen that opens its doors on Sunday for breakfast; a visit to a very fine sausage-maker in the shadows of my brother's alma mater, Reed College; an early morning visit to a rock-and-roll doughnut emporium; and what might have been the most exciting restaurant meal I have had in years.
I ate all this in 36 hours in Portland. My two days in San Francisco have been even more food-packed. Portland and San Francisco, we have a problem. When I am food-exploring in places I don't often get to or I'm visiting for the first time, I launch into a manic, headlong dash to gluttonous, life-shortening oblivion.
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 18, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Here's my dilemma. I have two completely conflicting impulses. I want to taste every delicious thing in this world, and I also want to keep control of my weight so that I can live to see my son grow old and our future grandchildren grow up. Can I succeed in doing both? Sometimes, when I'm feeling good and in control, I think the answer is yes. At other times, when there is so much food coming into Serious Eats world headquarters and when I feel the need to food-explore every morning, diet success seems like an impossible dream. This past week was an impossible dream week, and from a dieting-living perspective, it might have been saved by the other serious eaters.
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 11, 2008 at 8:30 AM
A study by the Journal of Consumer Research reported on in the New York Times actually suggests what my wife has been saying to me for months now: Smaller packages of snack foods actually cause serious eaters to eat more rather than less.
The study suggests smaller packages can lead consumers to eat more, by blunting their wariness about how much they consume. In one experiment, students were primed to think about their body shape, then were given potato chips and left to watch television. They ate nearly twice as many chips when given nine small bags as when given two large ones. They also hesitated less before opening the small bags.
Recently my wife told me not to buy any 100-calorie snack packs, that having them around the house actually caused me to eat more snacks than not. I of course ignored her advice and bought a ten pack of 100-calorie bags Snyder's of Hanover pretzel snaps.
So this week I quit eating 100-calorie snack packs cold turkey. I left the pretzel snaps on Cape Cod. I didn't even bring the bag or two I normally do for the five-hour trip home.
What do I eat instead between meals?
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, July 9, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Like college freshmen, bloggers stay up late munching on junk and use food to celebrate their newfound freedom from authorities. You mean, I can eat cold pizza in my pajamas at "the office"? Awesome. At Serious Eats headquarters, the "meeting table" is continually covered with nibbles. This week alone: barbecue from North Carolina, bags of licorice, an off-the-menu Blimpie sandwich, and homemade bread. Yeah, and it's only Wednesday.
Thank you, Mashable, for this list of 28 fitness sites trying to help us shape up the inner fat kid. Sites are divided into categories such as Calorie Counters, Diet Finders & Reviews, Support Groups, and Tools & Trackers.
Posted by Ed Levine, July 4, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I've been up on the Cape all this week and yes, I brought my scale (right). But having the scale with me only begs the question of how often I should weigh myself no matter where I am.
I brought the scale to hold myself accountable for any forays into vacation gluttony I might embark on, but the fact of the matter is that this question of how often I should be getting on the scale has been weighing on me for months.
I know there is no right answer to this almost cosmic question. I last attended a Weight Watchers' meeting 20 years ago, so I don't know where those eminently sensible folks are on this issue now. Other people advocate trying on the same pair of pants or shorts every week to see how snugly they fit, instead of weighing in. Still others say once a week, a third camp advocates weighing yourself every day at the same time.
Here's where I come down on this issue right now (after the jump). Please, serious eaters, let me know if it makes any sense at all.
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Posted by Ed Levine, June 27, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Is peanut butter the devil to a serious dieter—or an angel? To eat peanut butter or not to eat peanut butter? That is the question. I love peanut butter. Who doesn't? But does peanut butter love me and my diet back? My wife says no, that peanut butter is no serious dieter's friend. "The peanut butter thing is a problem, Ed," she says. "Nothing good comes out of having a jar of peanut butter in this house."
The first five months of watching my weight I swore off peanut butter, mostly because I find it incredibly difficult to exert any self-control when a full jar of peanut butter is nearby. Jars of Cream-Nut peanut butter (made by Koeze & Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan) with its intensely peanutty, just salty and sweet enough taste, sing a most seductive siren song.
But can I resist its undeniable charms, or must I resort to complete peanut butter abstinence? Must I start attending Peanut Butter Lovers Anonymous meetings? "Hello, my name is Ed. I'm a peanutbutterholic."
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Posted by Emily Koh, June 22, 2008 at 10:00 AM
The notion of eating healthy is too often dismissed as too expensive. Sure, buying organic does cost more, and fast food, with its convenience factor and cheap prices, appears more appealing to those on a tight budget. But to eat better doesn't necessarily mean you have to shop exclusively at Whole Foods or farmers' markets; it's perfectly doable to maintain a healthy diet without breaking the bank. ABC News has some tips on how to eat well for less without having to resort to 10¢ ramen.
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Posted by Ed Levine, June 20, 2008 at 8:30 AM
After months of experimentation I have finally come up with my perfect diet breakfast. I wish what I am about to tell you would be of more comfort to those of you who strive to eat a reasonably healthy diet, but it most assuredly isn't. In fact, what I'm about to tell you may be horrifying. Because I haven't settled on Greek yogurt or granola or toast made from whole-grain bread as my ideal diet breakfast, though I have grown to appreciate each of those foods in recent months. In fact I am using all three of the above-mentioned items in my diet breakfast rotation, along with a toasted bialy with the lightest schmear of whipped cream cheese.
But for this past week at least, my ideal breakfast turns out to be a 0.8-ounce bag of Kettle Bakes potato chips, a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke, and a banana. I find it has everything I'm looking for in a breakfast.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 13, 2008 at 9:25 AM
Speaking of diets, Japan is taking the measuring tape to its citizenry to make sure the populace does not get fat—or, as they call it there, metabo. Companies and local governments are required to add the statistic to employees' annual checkups.
To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.
A handy graph included with this story in the New York Times shows that average Japanese waistlines are 32.8 inches for men and 28 for women; U.S. waistline averages are 39 for men and 36.5 for women.
Posted by Ed Levine, June 13, 2008 at 8:30 AM
"Eight ounces of steak? An amuse bouche in my eyes."
Until very recently I was obsessed with the bigger-is-better school of eating. I would always look for what I thought would be the biggest appetizer, the biggest main course, and the biggest dessert. Half a rack of ribs? Not enough. A four-ounce burger? Child's play—or at the very least a child's portion. Half portions of pasta were for wusses. Eight ounces of steak? An amuse bouche in my eyes.
Now that I'm trying to change the way I eat and live, I'm really trying to cut down on my portion size. It's easier to do this at home, and much more difficult to do so at restaurants, where many chefs and restaurateurs want to impress you with quantity instead of quality because they want to be seen as generously spirited and magnanimous. There are a few chefs, however, who are taking a gutsy approach to portion size.
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Posted by Ed Levine, June 6, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Don't get me wrong, I love reviewing restaurants. It's a dream job, really, but for someone like me, who loves food but puts on weight easily, it can pose all sorts of problems. Just tasting something and pushing it away because there's so much other food coming is incredibly difficult to do, especially if that something is seriously delicious.
How am I going to write a restaurant review every week and continue to watch my weight? That's the zillion dollar question.
Now that I've been doing it for a month I can see that this is not going to be easy, serious eaters.
These are the tactics I have been employing:
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 30, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Last week, on Martha's Vineyard, I too often found myself in sneak food mode, a condition that frequently afflicts those of us of the dieting-living persuasion. What is sneak food mode? I'm sure at least a couple of serious eaters know it all too well.
Sneak food mode is just that, a moment, a window of opportunity that allows me to buy food to eat (all in the name of research, of course) that my wife (and sometimes my son, who is about to turn 21) will never find out about.
On the Vineyard sneak food moments or opportunities abound, as you are about to find out. And let me tell you, my serious eaters, this sneak food stuff is a slippery, slippery slope, which, if I let it get out of control could cost me up to 1,000 calories of food that I absolutely do not need.
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Posted by Raphael, May 27, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Josh "Mr. Cutlets" Ozersky, editor of The Grub Street, was a guest on last Friday night's Nightline, in which he goes to Hill Country Barbecue to discuss whether calorie labeling in restaurants would affect people's ordering:
I'm a purist. I love it when it's incredibly complex and layered—when all the arts of gastronomy have gone into a dish. But it should all be based on the beauty and simplicity of animal fat.
I don't think calorie counts are going to stop people from ordering something that's really good.
Ozersky compares the calorie contents of a grande mocha Starbucks coffee with whipped cream and pound cake (800-plus calories), a Big Mac (540 calories), Au Bon Pain's Southwest Tuna Wrap (860 calories), a tropical fruit smoothie from Dunkin' Donuts (720 calories), and the biggest stunner—what he calls "sucker salads": the Pecan Encrusted Chicken Salad at T.G.I. Friday's, clocking in at 1,360 calories.
Ozersky: "Pecans seem healthy. They're nuts. Chicken is skinless, there are greens. It's colorful and healthy, yeah, but it's almost as many calories as three Big Macs."
When asked if calorie labeling would improve people's lives, Ozersky replies, "It doesn't make my life better. I have a freakish existence. But I'd say it probably makes for a better society."
Video after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 16, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I don't know why exactly, but this week I felt like I lost control this week. It happens to me at some point or other whenever I go on a diet. Do other serious eaters find this to be the case when they embark on a weight loss regimen? In my case, losing my resolve could have disastrous consequences. Because once my resolve is gone, I can succumb to temptation big time. And believe me when I tell you that temptation is all around me virtually nonstop.
Friday afternoon I sent Sarah, one of the serious eaters here in the office, to a local bakery that had recently opened. I decided she should get one of every item the pastry chef-owner was proud of so that we could write the place up. Sarah came back with a dazzling array of exotic cupcakes, puddings, cookies, and cake slices (above). It was a brutal introduction to my diet weekend.
It turned out to open the floodgates, foodwise, for the rest of the week.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 9, 2008 at 8:45 AM
As some serious eaters may have noticed, I have started writing a weekly restaurant review. I'm looking forward to my reviewing stint, but I am wondering about its effect on my diet and life. Two more restaurant meals a week, piled on top of all the other food I eat in the name of the work and life I love, will put even more pressure on my "all things in moderation" regimen.
So I decided that I have to increase the frequency of my exercise regimen. Other restaurant critics, like Frank Bruni of the New York Times and Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle, have told me that what I would describe as fanatical, maniacal, obsessive exercise regimens have helped keep them trim. The question, serious eaters, is whether doubling down on my exercise regimen will do the trick and enable me to eat more and weigh less.
I actually tried it this week.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 2, 2008 at 8:30 AM
I have a love-hate relationship with my scale. Check that. Actually, I have a hate-hate relationship with it. Every diet book and diet plan addresses the role the scale should or does play in your life as a dieter. At Weight Watchers, each member weighs in once a week. Other diet plans say don't worry about the scale, measure your progress in inches with a tailor's tape measure or by repeatedly trying on an article of clothing.
The point is that whatever role we assign to our scale, it looms large in a dieter's life. We want it to be our friend, to be the bearer of good news. I also use my scale (right), a sleek, trim black number with an actual name, Thinner, as a governor. If I have a bad diet day or two, I climb on Thinner to acknowledge the adverse effect those bad days are having on my diet. If Thinner tells me I've gained a pound or two I can then redouble my efforts to lose weight in the ensuing days.
But sometimes, when I've gone off the deep (or should I say "heavy") end, I can't screw up the courage to get on the scale. That's when my relationship with Thinner gets particularly complicated—or freighted, to use a bad pun.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 24, 2008 at 11:00 AM
This week I learned something every astronaut has learned the hard way: Re-entry is a bitch, at least when it comes to breathing-living-eating-dieting. When I last left you, serious eaters, I was consuming quite a few pieces of some of the finest fried chicken in the land. It didn't get any easier after that in New Orleans.
Dinner that night was at Cochon, Donald Link's tribute to all things porcine that should be renamed Porktopia. The man loves pork as much as I do. It wouldn't surprise me if the tap water I drank there was infused with pork. We ate fried boudin balls, grilled pork ribs with watermelon salad, cochon (roast pig) of course, and house-made salumi, including some killer bologna and so many other pork-derived or saturated dishes that my dinner companions and I actually oinked in unison when we walked back to our hotel.
Last Meals in New Orleans
Breakfast and lunch the following day, the last two meals I was to have in New Orleans, were from Lüke, John Besh's newish restaurant that serves classic New Orleans cuisine and New Orleans–influenced German food. Mad good, but not exactly light.
Breakfast was grilled shrimp and buttery grits studded with fantastic andouille sausage, feather-light pancakes topped by berries in syrup, and just to kick it up a notch (hey, I was eating in Emeril country), a couple of big fat links of house-made pork sausage. Of course I left most of all three dishes, but the total calorie intake couldn't have been all that minimal. While there, I figured I'd order lunch to take on the plane; I grabbed a pressed cochon sandwich, which I had been eying on the menu ever since I had arrived in New Orleans. That sandwich represented my re-entry to moderation, as you're about to find out.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 10, 2008 at 9:45 AM
I'm hitting the road this Sunday for almost a week, and the signs of caloric danger are everywhere. First, I'm headed to Dallas to take in the Pillsbury Bake-Off. One hundred finalists vying for the $1,000,000 first prize are baking their best stuff in portable kitchens. I'm not judging, but I'm sure I will get to taste lots of elaborately constructed creative desserts using an array of everyday products.
But the bake-off is not what I'm most worried about. I'm much more worried about all the food I want to taste in Dallas, a city I have never been to before. To make matters worse (or better, depending on your vantage point), I am very likely to meet up with my friend Robb Walsh, restaurant critic for the Houston Press, who has spent the last 20 years eating his way through Texas one perfect bite at a time. Robb is a splendid fellow and a fine writer, but as far as I'm concerned, he's trouble with a capital T.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 20, 2008 at 9:00 AM
I was blown away by all the supportive comments on yesterday's post. For me, it really does help to be in this together with like-minded folks. Hillary Clinton famously said, "It takes a village" to raise a child. Maybe it takes a community of serious eaters to help some of us find an equilibrium when it comes to living/dieting.
Joy Manning, Serious Eats' Philadelphia correspondent, said a couple of things in her comment that have stayed with me:
One thing I thought was missing is the idea that the foods you eat don't make you fat—overeating makes you fat. As a someone who eats for a living, I've gotten pretty good at pushing things away. (Well, most of the time.) I also keep Anton Ego's memorable line from Ratatouille in mind: "I don't like food, I love it. If I don't love it, I don't swallow." It's a useful mantra!
This resonated with me, because I have redoubled my efforts to eat half (or even less) of what's put down in front of me. This past week was a zen exercise in eating half.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 19, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Today in the New York Times Kim Severson chronicles the struggles of bloggers, restaurateurs, chefs, food writers, and cookbook authors to control their weight while pursuing their beloved chosen profession. And, yes, though a part of me cringed at the very thought, my story was among those chronicled.
As the Serious Eats community knows, I have been grappling with my weight online for the past ten weeks in my weekly Thursday posts, and offline my whole life. So for those of you who have newly come to our community of passionate, discerning, and inclusive food lovers, let me say welcome. You will have to wait until tomorrow to see the next installment of my dieting living chronicle, but I thought it might prove useful to summarize where I've been living or dieting-wise.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 28, 2008 at 6:38 AM
This semipublic dieting (or "living," as they call it at Weight Watchers) is tough stuff. With Thursday being my weigh-in day, I have tried to arrange for Wednesdays to be light eating days. But sometimes life intervenes and temptation positively stalks me at every turn.
Yesterday was a perfect example. The day started innocently (and positively) enough. I played squash at 9 a.m. after having some nonfat Greek yogurt and a tablespoon of Sarabeth's strawberry peach preserves. I know many of you have implored me to give up the jam, but I'm just not there yet. I love sweet-and-tart combos, and there are few better than yogurt and preserves. Squash was great as always, and, according to my heart-rate monitor, I burned more than 400 calories on the squash court. But it was after squash that the food sirens started calling my name.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 7, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Every day I ride the subway to Serious Eats world headquarters surrounded by the "Start Living, Stop Dieting" Weight Watchers ads. It's a brilliant campaign, one I want to believe in with all my heart and soul. But there's just one question I have for the good folks at Weight Watchers: Does it apply to food writers? It seems to me that the Weight Watchers slogan is just another way to say what was the late Julia Child's mantra: Everything in moderation. That's what I've been trying to practice, but it ain't easy. Every week the sirens of fat tempt me with goodies and temptations, some of my own making.
Take this week, for example.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 31, 2008 at 9:00 AM
I have to say I'm not looking forward to getting on the scale this morning. If you noticed up top I subtitled this post "The Gauntlet." This past week was a very difficult one to sustain my diet. Why? Let me count the ways:
I tend to celebrate my birthday as a multiple-day affair, and this year my wife and I embarked on a three-day Woodstock-like celebration. What did we do?
Good friends treated us to dinner at Babbo. As a show of respect the kitchen at Babbo sent out seven desserts for us to try. Gina DePalma's (our newly ensconced Rome correspondent) desserts are amazing, but oh so tempting.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 24, 2008 at 7:00 AM
I have to say that dieting in public, digital fashion has been kind of motivating. The community of Serious Eaters has been so supportive and so helpful I feel like I've been thrown into some kind of Weight Watchers–like situation, which is most definitely a good thing.
I regard my Thursday-morning weigh-in with the same mixture of dread and excitement that used to pervade my actual Weight Watchers experiences when I actually went to that company's meetings many years ago.
But the digital weigh-in does function as an online Serious Dieters meeting. In fact if anyone wants to join me, I would really appreciate other folks weighing in on Thursday morning and reporting the results by commenting on these weekly posts. If no one else finds this idea motivating, appealing, or attractive, that's cool, too. Just knowing we're all in this together helps.
This week's challenges: chocolate, hot chocolate, macarons, an almost perfect baguette, Vermont farmstead cheeses, diner breakfast.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 17, 2008 at 6:00 AM
Week 2 was filled with many diet challenges unique to people who eat and then write about what they ate for a living. Sometimes I think there's nothing more pathetic than a food writer and lover—a serious eater—on a diet. Then I conclude that it's not pathetic, just hard and worthwhile.
I was in Minneapolis for two days this week on business (thanks, everyone, for all the excellent dinner and breakfast suggestions). Whenever I'm traveling on business I feel compelled to explore the food culture of that city with local food writers and restaurant critics leading the way. Actually, it's much more than a compulsion. It's a source of great pleasure. I don't like to waste meals on mere fueling up. So my meals were charted out with the idea that each of them would be grist for my blogging mill.
Tomorrow I will give you my take on what I ate in Minneapolis, but suffice to say it was a challenging time to be on a diet. I did practice extreme portion control, except for a second extra polenta-crusted fried prawn I absolutely didn't need (it wasn't even very good). And I did miss an opportunity to exercise when I neglected to bring my workout clothes and running shoes.
How did I fare in general when it came to exercise, food, and self-control?
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 12, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Going on the 81st year of cookie sales, the Girl Scouts and their rainbow-colored boxes don’t need much explainin’.
Except this year, when the pigtail-wearing munchkins—who started pre-orders last Thursday—decided you should ease up on the Thin Mints. Yes, you. Because, they don’t make you thin, it turns out. For the first time, girl scouts are selling 100-calorie packs in a flavor they've baptized Cinna-Spins.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 10, 2008 at 8:15 AM
I regard Week 1 of my diet as a success, but it wasn't easy. It's obvious that I need every bit of the encouragement and assistance all of you have been offering me. I'll be checking in with all of you every Thursday to give you a diet update.
As Serious Eats I find myself confronted by temptation at every turn. Yesterday, for example, the Serious Eats crew decided to have a mess of Korean fried chicken delivered. You think it's easy eating brown rice and a little lean roast pork while they're snarfing down regular and extra-spicy fried chicken, mac and cheese, and waffle fries? Temptation yesterday also took the form of some BonBonBars, chocolate bars made from serious ingredients, which arrived in a box from California. You will be hearing from me about these seriously good treats, but I managed to just have a bite of each of two bars.
Last night's dinner wasn't any easier. I had a business dinner with someone who loves good food and wine in general, and has a particular thing for pizza. In fact every year this fellow piles into a limousine with six of his friends and they go on a New York pizza tour.
We ended up going to Lucali's in Brooklyn and splitting a sausage pie and a huge calzone. They were both very fine, indeed, and I will report more about them at a later date. But I remained on guard and had two small, almost dainty, slices of the pizza and a tiny piece of the calzone.
So how did I get through the week? Just as important, how did I do when I got on the scale this morning?
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 2, 2008 at 8:30 AM
In light of my New Year's resolution to lose weight, I decided I had to come up with a list of seven go-to foods that I must always keep on hand to satisfy primal food cravings in a controlled fashion.
They must be foods that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and for me, at least, they must come in a preportioned package so that I am not tempted to eat more than I should. These go-to foods must have significant nutritional value, and they must be at least reasonably delicious and satisfying. They may change with the seasons, so today's list is a winter list.
I would welcome other people's lists and suggestions as well. But here is mine:
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Posted by Alaina Browne, October 23, 2007 at 7:00 PM
- Fast food eaters fatter than others: Is this really news? A study finds that people who eat several fast-food meals a week are significantly heavier than those who don't eat fast food very often. [USA Today]
- Declining sales for causal dining restaurants: "Fifty-four percent of Americans said they would eat out at restaurants less over the next three months, according to a survey of 1,000 people by RBC Capital Markets. And if they do, many will try cheaper options such as McDonald’s." [Detroit Free Press]
- Suppressing thoughts about your food cravings may make you eat more: In a recent study, women who tried to stop thinking about chocolate ate 50 percent more than those who were encouraged to talk about their cravings. Lead researcher Dr. James Erskine said, "There is a lot of research into the idea that when you suppress a thought you end up thinking about it more. However, this the first concrete evidence of how this works in relation to food choices." [BBC News]
- U.S.D.A to test more beef more frequently: In response to the Topp's Meat Co. recall, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service will tighten enforcement of food safety rules. Measures include testing plants that handle a larger volume of beef more frequently. Sounds like a small step in the right direction. [Reuters]
Slate magazine compares the environmental effects of vegetarianism and omnivorism. Eating some meat may make better use of environmental resources than eschewing meat all together, but overall people are eating more meat than what nature can efficiently supply.
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 9, 2007 at 6:30 PM
- And then they came for the pot pies: ConAgra plant in Missouri shuts down after possible link to 139 salmonella cases in 30 states. Check your freezers, folks. ConAgra advises against eating "Banquet brand turkey and chicken pot pies as well as generic-store brand pot-pie products bearing the number 'P-9' on the side of the package." [The Canadian Press]
- U.S. considering food aid to North Korea: "Pyongyang has positively responded to a U.S. plan to send monitors to ensure the food reaches the neediest, [newspaper Chosun Ilbo] said, adding that Washington was considering other aid such as generators for hospitals." [Agence France-Presse]
- Alice Waters appears on Today. With video. [MSNBC]
- An act of Congress: In a look at food-stamp funding in light of the pending farm bill, some U.S. reps recount their summer experiments living on $21 a week for food. You can't eat heathily on it, they find. Gee, who woulda thunkit? [San Jose Mercury News]
- Is fat the lesser evil?: In his new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes argues that low-fat diet recommendations were scientifically unjustified and may well have harmed Americans by encouraging them to switch to carbohydrates, which he believes cause obesity and disease. [New York Times]
- Campbell Soup gives $250,000 to sustainable ag: The University of California–Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute has received $250,000 from the Campbell Soup Company to support sustainable agriculture research, education, and outreach. [Central Valley Business Times]
Posted by Ed Levine, July 9, 2007 at 7:19 AM
The New York Times piece on the burgeoning popularity of 100 calorie snack food packages stated the obvious in its headline and sub-head: "Fewer Bites. Fewer Calories. Lot More Profit," and "Snacks in Small Single-Serving Packs Aren't Economical, but People Buy Them."
Of course snack-food manufacturers make more money selling six packs of 100 calorie bags of everything from Goldfish to Oreo Thins. And yes, if I could find the wherewithal to just buy a big bag of Goldfish and divide them neatly into 100 calorie portions using plastic bags and ties, I would save lots of money. But the reality of the situation is if I bought the big bag of Goldfish I would polish them off in a couple of forays to the kitchen between innings of a televised Yankee game. I don't have the self-discipline to divide the big bag in order to practice portion control, and furthermore, I doubt that most other people struggling with their weight do either.
In fact I have a radical notion that might just solve my weight problem.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 23, 2007 at 8:45 AM
Some nutrition coaches charge people as much as $500 an hour to help them lose weight, according to the New York Times. As someone who's struggled with weight issues my whole life, those folks sound like a surefire way to lighten your wallet without shrinking your gut. I guess it falls into the category of "whatever works."
