Serious Eats
Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 38: Embracing My Inner Bok Choy
I freaked my son out last week. For perhaps the first time ever, I opted for the broccoli instead of the fried shrimp at the mediocre Chinese restaurant where we were eating. Will was incredulous: "I'm not believing what I'm seeing. What is going on here? You're really serious about this diet stuff, aren't you, Dad?"
I'm even freaking myself out with my fervent embrace of (gasp) vegetables. We're talking about way more than broccoli here. We're talking carrots and green beans and even bok choy. My appetite is a bok choy-seeking missile. Do you know what it's like to eat the bok choy and leave the pork alone?
This is more than a sea change. It's an appetite transplant. I have embraced my inner baby bok choy.
Last night I brought home roast pork with baby bok choy and brown rice from our local Cuban-Chinese restaurant. I put some of each on two plates, and my wife and I sat down to eat. I finished my plate in a few minutes (I still need to eat more slowly). I looked over at my wife's plate and she had eaten the pork and left most of the bok choy. I asked her if I could have her bok choy. I thought she was going to feant. She was speechless.
That bok choy was good. It was tender and just crisp enough. I can't tell you with all candor that I wouldn't have preferred the pork. But it is not to be. Because I have embraced my inner bok choy. Finally, after more than fifty years, I am down with leafy green vegetables. Bok choy is a leafy green vegetable, isn't it?
I'm hopeful that my embrace of bok choy and broccoli has put me in a good position weight-loss wise this week. My interim weigh-ins have been encouraging, but interim numbers are meaningless at the moment of truth. They're sort of like close polling numbers that fall within the margin of error.
Bok choy. Photograph by Sokhar on Flickr
The Weigh-In
Anyone, here goes. 240. Down another two pounds. Praise the choy! Praise the choy!