Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 58: My Diet Buddy Grace
With the non-stop focus on food at SE World HQ, I need as many diet buddies as I can get. Although everybody is supportive at work, who would have thunk that our superb intern, Grace Kang, is my ace number one diet buddy at work. I may be the boss, but Grace always speaks her mind with my waistline in mind, even when I give her dagger looks. At home my wife and even my son are ever vigilant, but for me there is much more diet peril at work for reasons known to most serious eaters: the constant availability of potentially seriously delicious food.
Grace usually sits at our conference table, amidst the sea of gathered and delivered food that seems to take over said table nearly every day. It is from that key vantage point that Grace doles out her tough diet love.
It was Grace who saved me from lard potato chip ruination by instituting "The Rule of Twenty": no one in the office can eat more than twenty lard chips a day. Often one of us brings in food that turns out to be pretty terrible, and it is Grace who saves me from myself when I wander over to her lair (the table) to nibble on some sub-standard goodie.
She invariably says, "Ed, what are you doing eating those things? You just told us they're not good."
It's been a particularly stressful week at work, so I have found myself all too often in Grace's lair, looking for chocolate or even seasonal goodies like hamantaschen or Irish soda bread (Bouchon Bakery is baking an exemplary Irish soda bread for St. Patrick's Day).
But she has been ever vigilant in trying to put a stop to my neighborly forays.
The Weigh-In
Let's hope her vigilance was enough. My interim weigh-ins over the week have had me mostly even. That's not surprising, because last week I lost two pounds and the weight is coming off slower and slower, which I suppose is a good thing because it means I am getting down to my goal weight.
Here we go: 225. Down a pound.
Thank you, Grace, a fabulous intern and a most excellent diet buddy. I've decided that every time I approach the conference table I should think to myself, "There but for the Grace of good go I."
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3 Comments:
Oh, Ed!
I'm always amused when you wander over, ever so innocently, and cut the tiniest nibble of cookie. You then pronounce judgment on the poor sandwich or baked good and amble back to your desk. Repeat 10x.
I know my lair is dangerous territory (after all, I live here!), but you do a good job navigating the treacherous terrain. Go team!
Grace Kang at 10:53AM on 03/13/09
Ed, Have been following your epic struggle with much sympathy & fellow feeling. If you have not already done so (you mentioned it a couple of years ago but I got the feeling you were responding to the book's media attn, not the thing itself) I urge you to read Brian Wansink's MINDLESS EATING. It could help shore up your unconscious. The experiments they devise to get at the ways we all trick and trip ourselves up are elegant and diabolically convincing. And he doesn't preach. And its funny.
erialc at 11:08AM on 03/13/09
Hola Ed! Not too long ago, I too fought stress, but I did not have a Grace to stop me. My problem was when I got behind things, I went and shopped. And these proprietors fully aided and abetted me. Dresses as much as my rent. Specialty foods that belonged, of course, on beautiful new and creative plates. And then there was that rare Yaakov Shabtai book...in the original Hebrew...don't even ask how much I paid.
Point is, now I was pointed recently by a friend to other ways of combating stress. I don't know if these will help but I offer them up:
(1) Put on "I Will Survive" by Gloria G and dance your socks off. Just because you are male AND in an office AND there's people around AND it's a really a breakup song doesn't mean you can appreciate the chorus and sing along...
(2) Install a small punching bag in the corner of your office and get some boxing gloves. Or have a pillow handy. Or, for the true minimalist, a squeeze ball.
(3) Try a cup of ginger tea. I like to cut up raw ginger thin, pour hot water over it, cover with a plate and steep for 15 minutes. It's also a great stomach soother.
(4) Look at this picture: http://www.thecuteproject.com/images/items/1143.jpg I'm not into cutsie but this always makes me smile. In truth, I want one of those but believe federal law prohibits it.
(5) The whole deep breathing thing...let me know if it works...
healthygirl78 at 2:50PM on 03/13/09