Fats, Fads & Fabulousness

And now for a topic I have no right to discuss and about which you probably have no desire to read: healthy eating.

I remember several times, in college, ordering a cheese sandwich at the cafeteria, since I’d understood that dairy is good for you. I had no concept of ‘good fats’ and ‘bad fats’ though, so I custom-ordered a sandwich with every type of cheese the cafeteria had available. Which means I had about eight slices of cheese piled onto my enriched-bleached-flour bread (grains!) that was then smothered in mayonnaise (eggs!). Then I heated the whole thing. Just thinking about the oil that was dripping off that artery-clogger makes me sick ten years later. But I ate it all, because I didn’t know what else to eat.

Then, the next day, I decided to eat something smaller for lunch: so I ordered up some sugar-y yogurt and a muffin: one of those king-sized muffins (grains!) with a cream-cheese (dairy!) filling, raspberry jam (fruit!) topping, and sprinkled with a generous layer of crunchy stuff (which I pretended was granola, but I knew was really more sugar).

      I hated salads, probably because my sadistic parents made me scrape and chop carrots, celery and cucumbers several times a week growing up, thereby leaving me with a bad mental view of raw veggies.  So, as I started living on my own, the only vegetables I ate were (already-peeled) baby carrots and frozen peas or corn. And fries (who knew potatoes aren’t really a vegetable these days?). I occasionally rounded out my diet with a banana.

A year after I graduated, I was working at a very physically-demanding job . . . which means I felt free to eat more. Not more fruits and vegetables, mind you, but more cookies, cakes, and candies. Then came Lent, and I decided to continue my masochistic tradition of giving up chocolate for forty days. And, if I couldn’t have chocolate, I often just didn’t care to eat any other sweets. Imagine my surprise when, come Easter morning, I found that the combination of physical labor and a lack of sweets had caused me to drop two dress sizes! Wow, maybe there was something to this whole ‘less sugar and carbs’ thing!

      Then I moved across country to a work environment where my co-workers actually enjoyed sweets as much as I did. A year later, I’d gained ten pounds and was beginning to feel a little like a cross between the Michelin Man, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy (hmmm, all males; does corporate consumer America [and France] know better than to suggested bloated pasty masses would be female?).

    So a few friends and I decided to try the South Beach diet, which was peaking in popularity at that time. In case you don’t know, South Beach emphasizes ‘good fats’ and ‘good carbs’ along with low glycemic-index fruits and vegetables; and if you want to know what that means, you’ll just have to buy the book. It has you change your eating habits via three phases:

      Phase One: eat only vegetables (but no carrots, corns or peas), lean meat, low-fat dairy, and a few nuts. Desserts consists primarily of sugar-free Jello (they make such a thing?) and ricotta cheese spiked with Splenda and extracts. This phase has to be strict to purge your body of its sugar cravings, but you’re supposed to be able to lose 8-10 pounds on it. It only lasts two weeks, but by the end of it I was ready to bitch-slap somebody.

      Phase Two: add in most fruits (but no melons or bananas) and small amounts of whole grains (brown rice, 100% whole wheat bread). You’re also allowed chocolate (“sparingly”). You’re supposed to add back in a new item one day at a time so you can monitor what makes your body gain weight. However, after two weeks on Phase One, I started Phase Two with a bundle of grapes and cheese (nothing had ever tasted so delicious!) and half a tray of chocolate pistachio bark (because – to me – that is eating chocolate “sparingly”). Then I promptly got the largest stomach ache in my life, and realized the Dr. South Beach probably knew what he was talking about. You’re supposed to stay on Phase Two until you reach your goal weight, losing 1-2 pounds a week. I think I lasted about eight days; then someone brought bagels into work and I decided it was high time to move on to:

      Phase Three: the “Maintenance” phase. This is the phase you stay on for the rest of your life. You can eat whatever you want, with the realization that most of the foods that weren’t allowed in the first two phases should be viewed as ‘occasional treats’ instead of everyday indulgences. This means you can never again eat a potato or a pineapple without feeling just a little bit guilty, and you know you’re going to hell for the donut you had last week.

      Now, if you paid attention to my list of preferred food items, perhaps you can appreciate how desperate I must have been to try South Beach. The only vegetables I liked were considered bad, and I wasn’t allowed potatoes, sugars and breads (my three favorite food groups!). But, about two months after starting South Beach, I’d lost nearly 15 pounds. Even better, I now liked broccoli! And I understood why all the things I’d been eating all my life weren’t doing me any favors. It was liberating!

      Sure, I was a little sad that my tastes had changed so much that I no longer even enjoyed baked potatoes, but I was healthier, so I could live with that. And now, if I gained a few pounds, I knew what to eat to take them back off.

      So, did I learn from all this? You bet I did! I learned that I could eat pound cake to my heart’s content for weeks, growing increasingly Stay-Puft, as long as I fastidiously switched back to Phase One as soon as I’d gained eight pounds!

      And that’s been my eating style for the past eight years. I switch between Phase One and what I call ‘Phase 13’: if I’m not eating just vegetables and lean meats/dairy, then I’m carb-loading on insane amounts of baked products and anything chocolate. The good news is that I still don’t like white potatoes, white rice, or white noodles. The bad news is that I’ll turn my nose up at Bee’s homemade spaghetti since the pasta isn’t whole wheat; however, I’ll promptly eat two bowls of ice cream for dessert.

      Bee hates my eating habits. Let me rephrase that: Bee despises, loathes, and abhors my eating habits. He doesn’t see why I’ll whine that his pasta’s too unhealthy to eat, then I’ll turn around and over-eat sugar; I don’t know why he won’t accept that I won’t eat the pasta so that I can eat the sugar. He doesn’t see why I’ll eat alarming proportions of crap for months, then staunchly label even bananas as “the fruit of the devil” for two weeks; I don’t see why he can’t accept that I either have to be living the high life or punishing myself for living the high life.

      Sadly-enough, I know he’s right. I know my eating habits are terrible. Even though I can usually lose most of the weight I’ve gained, I know that my constant yo-yo-ing isn’t good for my system. I feel terrible when I’m on the fatter end of my weight spectrum, and I feel so great when I’ve lost those eight pounds again that I pledge to never, ever gain them back. That lasts about two weeks.

      I’m afraid I’ve been a little tired of doing Phase One lately, and have started looking for other quick-fixes to my weight gains. I don’t believe in diet pills, and I don’t want to do a fad diet that sounds unhealthy.

      I stumbled across a rather effective weight-loss technique just before Christmas, which I dubbed “The Stomach Flu Plan”, whereby you spend the evening throwing up, get starved at ten p.m. and eat a few mouthfuls of rice, throw them up, spend the night throwing up every hour, get famished at seven a.m. and eat some applesauce, throw it up, feel much better – just tired – so decide to go soak in the hot tub at the gym. After 20 minutes in steamy water, you feel better and start to rinse off in the showers, then suddenly feel woozy from the lack of sleep and nutrients and find yourself waking up on the concrete floor near the pool with cold shower water raining on you and a kindly older gentleman bending over to ask if you’re OK. And, as much as you appreciate his concern, you’re sort of mad he couldn’t just let you sleep, because a little bit of sleep is all you need, goddammit. At any rate, you’ll be nearly right-as-rain by that evening, but not really interested in food for a few days, which keeps you from eating all that Christmas crap and therefore allows you to lose so many pounds you weigh as much as you did when you were at your fittest (that two-month period six years ago). Of course, that’ll only last three days.

      Sadly, since I don’t have a child in school, it’s not easy to catch a stomach bug; so I’ve had to try more extreme dieting measures this week. I’ve moved on to ‘The Diet From The Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital’, which lasts seven days and revolves around a ‘Fat-Burning Soup’ that you eat every day. Like, four or five times a day. Whenever you’re hungry. Which basically is all week.

      Sigh, that’s what I like about South Beach: even in its strictest phase, you’re still allowed things like nuts and beans, which are filling. There’s no way I’ll fill up on cabbage and green beans. However, for the most part, I think this is a healthy diet: I mean, I’d never otherwise eat cabbage, and most of the other things allowed this week line up with what South Beach says is healthy.

Disgustingly healthy, decidedly delicious

I’m on Day 6 and my second batch of the Fat-Burning Soup, and I would kill for a handful of nuts or a slice of whole-wheat bread. I have, however, lost a good five pounds. Tomorrow I get to eat rice (woo-hoo!), then I’m done with Sacred Heart. I’ll be good for a few days, loving the fact that I can sit without my belly pushing up my boobs and that my own personal turkey timer will be less infected. Then I’ll get lax, and eat a few too many cookies.

      I have hope, though, that this time, for once, finally, it’ll stick; and that I’ll only eat a few too many cookies once a week instead of once a day. I have hopes that I’ll be modest with my treats and never again put Bee through the horror of having to listen to me detail all the parts of my body that I hate at the moment. I have hopes that I’ll use the Fat-Burning Soup as a ‘dinner regular’ instead of a ‘for-dieting-only’ item, because it really is quite tasty, especially if you add some meat and rice to it.

      I need to do this for my body, my psyche, and Bee’s sanity. And I especially need to do this so I never again get to the point where I have to be on a diet where this is my breakfast:

Yum!

Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital Fat-Burning Soup

6 lg. green onions

2 bell peppers (I prefer red)

2 lbs. carrots

1 bunch celery

1 28 oz. can tomatoes (I prefer Italian-style, or add your own oregano)

2 lbs. green beans

1 head cabbage

2 pkgs. Lipton soup mix (I prefer onion-mushroom)

1 large can beef broth

Boil for 10 minutes, then simmer ’til veggies are tender.

Be warned that, while you will adore the first bowl of this soup, you will never want to see another carrot after eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week.