Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 74: Can My All-Pie Fourth of July Diet Work?
I am on Martha's Vineyard, where pies seem to be baked on every corner. I can get my pie fix from Mrs. Blake's, The Black Dog Bakery, Little Rock Farms, The Scottish Bakehouse, Fiddlehead Farm, The Old Stone Bakery, Just Pie, Morning Glory Farms, Garcia's, and literally too many other places to mention. I happen to be partial to Mrs. Blake's, because of her flaky crusts and her fruity, not goopy, fillings, but I am not slavishly devoted to her 8-inch round beauties.
So faced with this plethora of pies this July 4th weekend I am going to embark on an admittedly gimmicky, some would say radical, others would say ridiculous and silly, one-day diet of just pie.
Stay with me here. Let me do the math.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a slice of apple pie, one-sixth of an 8-inch pie, has 280 calories. So if I consume six slices, an entire apple pie in the course of a day, chased down by nothing but water and seltzer, I will be ingesting 1680 calories. That will allow me to have a slice of pie for breakfast at 9 a.m., a slice and a half for lunch at 12:30 p.m., a slice for a snack at 3:30 p.m., a slice and a half for dinner at 6:30 p.m. and a final evening snack slice at 9:30 p.m.
This sounds like a plan that could actually work, not as a steady diet, but just as a grand, one-day, serious diet stress-buster. And if I play tennis or go on a long bike ride, that will knock off at least one piece of pie's worth of calories from my daily count, and maybe more. So my calorie intake for the day might be 1400 calories or fewer.
If it works, I might do this once a month. Let's call it the Serious Diet Pie Flush or the Serious Pie Cleanse. Maybe I can get Gwyneth Paltrow to try it with me. She's always talking about flushes and cleanses.
The Weigh-In
The week has been chock full of challenges. Italian breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at Locanda Verde, burnt ends at RUB, and a most excellent Sal and Carmine's pizza. Interim weigh-ins have not been encouraging. Here we go: 213. Up three from last week. I'm not going to get too discouraged. I had a big weight drop two weeks ago and it feels like my body is seeking a new weight equilibrium. Should I rethink my pie cleanse? I don't know.
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13 Comments:
I'm sorry to break this to you, Ed, but your calorie count for one slice of pie is pretty unrealistic. Just to give you a ballpark, my mother's homemade apple pie with a regular top and bottom crust (flour, shortening, salt, and water), apples, sugar, cinnamon, and a little butter in the filling, is 430 calories for one slice. I did the math. So, just be careful out there, but still enjoy your Fourth of July weekend!
gildeddawn at 10:08AM on 07/03/09
It was inevitable that you would go up at some point, that is what happens when you do things sensibly. If at any point you feel discouraged, put on some old pants from the start of all this to realize how far you have come. I do think the body has to come to equilibrium. So keep doing what you have been doing which has been working!!!!!!!!!!! Happy 4th!!!!!
Jbout at 10:13AM on 07/03/09
Yeah, I agree with gildeddawn, 280 for a slice seems a bit low. Calorie wise, you may be fine for one day. But personally, I would feel like crap at the days end :P. Maybe break the day up with a fresh salad or pieces of fruit?
pastry262 at 11:03AM on 07/03/09
@ed--it's funny, but as a lifetime dieter, I often tried such diets--such as having only 1,200 calories of Pop Tarts or ice cream for the day, rationalizing I was going to eat it anyway, so why not. The problems are 1. If you're obsessed with a food, portion control is hard 2. Eating that much sugary stuff makes you want more sugar 3. I have a feeling you might gain (sorry). I know it's mathematically illogical, but everytime I mono-dieted, it felt like my body, starved for nutrition, was grasping onto every last sugary calorie it could hold onto.
HeartofGlass at 12:03PM on 07/03/09
pie is too delicious to be counting calories.
as long as you're enjoying yourself, diet's be damned.
i do oppose the idea of calling it a 'cleanse' though.
that has such a gross connotation.
i think most people fluxuate weightwise by a few pounds each week.
just keep your exercise up and remember to eat slowly, so you can tell when you're actually full.
happy fourth (slice of pie, that is!)
gastronomeg at 12:05PM on 07/03/09
Can we nickname you Cartman for the day?
But having a whole apple pie, sans ice cream, all day might be a bit boring.
At least for me. And I am one of those who adores apple pie.
And no, I can't see it as a cleanse, either. Though you might want to take a piece of pie, put it in the blender with some organic apple juice and see what that tastes like.
Have fun and keep up the great work.
queenbleu at 12:15PM on 07/03/09
Just jog while you're eating those pies! Be careful not to bite your tongue though. ;)
Cassaendra at 12:18PM on 07/03/09
I'm afraid you're going to end up with the sugar crash to end all sugar crashes if you pursue the all-pie plan. Forget weight gain—if I did that I would feel absolutely awful the next morning, if not by the end of the day. I'm hypoglycemic, so I watch sugar particularly carefully, but I think insulin is too touchy a thing to mess with that much. I would think even a mostly-pie day would be fine, but make sure you eat some protein at some point.
gwenkern at 2:45PM on 07/03/09
I saw something on TV that said the average American eats six slices of pie a year. A YEAR! I just about broke down in tears over that. I am pleased someone besides me is helping to correct that dismal statistic.
CatBoy at 2:59PM on 07/03/09
Ed, why don't you give yourself one day of sensible, non-diet eating as you will do it once you hit goal weight? That's got to be pretty soon now, so start getting used to it!
annien at 3:23PM on 07/03/09
That's ok, Ed. I'm having a cleansing diet tomorrow of hot dogs on toasted, buttered potato rolls. Walked 2 extra miles today but I know that won't even put a dent in the damage. What the hell...it's a holiday.
bessfour at 5:29PM on 07/03/09
i say go for it ed, get it out of your system..... sometimes, like once or twice a year, i'll eat a whole big bag of potato chips -- it gets wanting them and needing them out of my system. maybe because my tongue swells up from all the salt!
make sure you have a different kind of pie slice for each serving.... lots of choices right now....
pooch at 10:05PM on 07/03/09
Week 74? Ok buddy, it's been almost a year and a half. Do you really need people telling you it's OK to eat whatever you want?
cliffyb at 1:45PM on 07/04/09