Serious Eats
Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 61: The Acid Reflux Chest Tightness Diet
Remember a few weeks ago when I was musing about what kind of diet I'm on? Well as of last week I'm on the Acid Reflux Diet. A gastroenterologist I saw stuck a tube camera down my throat (I didn't feel a thing because of the wonderful drugs the anesthesiologist gave me) and said he found some signs of acid reflux. He told me to eliminate caffeine, chocolate, and mint from my diet. He also told me to try to have a number of small meals throughout the day that should end by 7:30, or 8 p.m. at the latest. In other words he put me on the eat-like-a-boid early bird special diet.
(And oh yes, like just about every doctor I see these days he asked me for my favorite hamburger in his neighborhood; maybe we should have a separate blog for where doctors should eat all over the country: seriousdoceats.com. Now I know what kind of diet my gastroenterologist is on: the Nick Solares diet. Doesn't seem fair, does it? End of long digression.)
I found out during the course of the week just how the Acid Reflux Diet was going to affect my serious diet. As an aside, serious eaters, are any of you coping with acid reflux? Any coping tips would be greatly appreciated.
The no caffeine is difficult for me because of all the Diet Coke I drink. The doc told me I could drink caffeine-free diet coke, but I decided to just go cold turkey all together on Coke products: all that carbonated brown liquid can't do anything good for my innards. I drink a lot more water and seltzer these days. It's not as tasty, but I get to feel really virtuous.
The no chocolate regimen is tough. Serious eaters, do you know how much chocolate makes it way to Serious Eats World Headquarters in a given week? Do you know how many cookies with lots of chocolate in or around them find their way to our office? Do you know how many chocolate desserts call my name in restaurants? The answer to all of the above is "lots and lots." So I deal with this particular dietary restriction by severely limiting, but not eliminating, chocolate.
Leaving mint out of my diet hasn't been much of an issue. I like some mint in my iced tea, but it's not essential, and I can't have iced tea anyway because of the caffeine. Meg Hourihan did e-mail me recently to extol the virtues of the new Häagen-Dazs mint ice cream, but hopefully it will still be around when these dietary restrictions are lifted.
The hardest part of the burger doc's regimen to follow is the "don't eat after 8 p.m." edict. We often work late at World HQ and so I'm trying to get used to eating dinner at 6:30 or 7 at the office. Eating out with friends is tough. I finally ate at Tom Colicchio's Tom Tuesday Dinner. We had a 7:30 reservation (which I had made well before I saw the G-I doc), so we didn't finish the absolutely delicious and delightful ten course dinner until 11. Sorry, Doc. Sorry, tummy (though for some reason my acid reflux was not that bad that night).
But when I'm not eating out I find that I'm okay with not eating late. It certainly stops me from wandering into the kitchen for a banana or a box of raisins around 11 p.m.
And in general, eating early has had a positive effect on my tummy problems and hopefully on my serious diet. Let's find out.
The Weigh-In
Here we go. 223. Down a pound this week. The early bird really does catch the ounces.