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.
Coming off the week in Portugal and Spain, I really wanted to get back into the groove, eating-wise. Then fate intervened to make it a little more difficult. I strained my hamstring playing squash last Wednesday, so I haven't been able to exercise all week.
The inability to work out made my portion-control mantra even more crucial to succeeding on my program. Of course I had lunch dates at serious restaurants Monday and Wednesday and a television shoot about Todd English's pizza on Tuesday. Ah, the gauntlet that is my life. Oh yeah, I had also made a date to eat one of my favorite burgers in New York City last Thursday.
The burger challenge was last Thursday. Bill Telepan's burger at Telepan comes with killer fries, onion rings that would be just as killer if they were a little crunchier and more brown, and some house-made bread and butter pickles.
My dining companion started with salad, so I did, too (a beet and goat cheese salad). I carefully cut the perfect, delicious burger in half, moved half the fries and onion rings over to the other side of the plate. I ate the half burger along with a few fries and onion rings. I had two bites of apple fritter for dessert. I told my lunch companion that I was going to have the rest of the burger and fries wrapped up for my son, which would have been true if my son hadn't already gone back to college that morning. Ah, the lies I tell myself in the name of good food. I then decided I would take the leftover burger and fries home for Vicky's dinner. On the way home after work I couldn't resist opening the burger container. I threw the leftover burger and fries out, disgusted with myself for my lack of self-control.
I think I did OK eating Todd English's light, crisp pizza during the interview, but it's hard to know given how much I love pizza (enough to write an entire book on the subject). Why doesn't somebody invent a machine that tells you how many calories you're eating as you consume them? Memo to Steve Jobs: Get on that, right away!
Dinner with an out-of-town friend was at a new restaurant owned by a chef who lives in my neighborhood. I ordered two appetizers and gave half of each to my thankfully famished friend. The kitchen sent out one extra dish of dover sole with cauliflower purée. Sounds kind of innocent, doesn't it, until I realized the amount of butter that went into the dish. I didn't want to be disrespectful to the chef, so I had a couple of bites before sliding it over to my pal's side of the table.
Yesterday I had a business lunch at a really good restaurant where I successfully resisted the bread basket entirely, ate half my lasagna and a salad, and had two bites of a delicious cara cara orange almond cake with ricotta ice cream for dessert. Dinner was the leftover lasagna, which thankfully was not made with a béchamel sauce.
So where I am going to net out this week? I have no idea. I hope the lack of exercise doesn't cost me. Time to hit the scale: Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm down another pound. I have now lost nine pounds with the much-needed help of the Serious Eats community. Maybe it really does take a website.
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