Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 12: A Prayer for a Real Treat Is Answered
When you're dieting, real treats are important. How do I define a real treat? Something that makes your eyes grow big as plates when you peel or unwrap it. Something crazy good that doesn't break the bank calorie-wise (less than 200 calories) and that doesn't send you into a guilt-induced food coma. Something creamy, crunchy, and delicious (for me it's something that's also chocolaty). Something substantial enough to savor through a full half-inning of the new baseball season.
A sweet-and-spicy though not very juicy Golden Nugget Mandarin orange, my current favorite citrus fruit, is delicious, wonderful even, but it's not a treat. A perfectly ripe banana with lots of light brown speckles on its skin is a beautiful thing, but it's not a treat. A small bag of lower fat baked potato chips doesn't qualify as a treat either, because although they might be perfectly fine, they're not the real thing, and I know exactly what I'm missing in every pleasant but not great bite.
Until last week I had never found a treat that fit all my criteria, until a plain white box was delivered to our door at Serious Eats that was literally the answer to my prayers.
The good folks at Häagen-Dazs sent us a box of their brand-new snack-sized coffee almond bars. I say my prayers were answered because a couple of weeks ago I had decided that what my serious diet-life needed was a smaller-sized Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar. I even thought about writing Häagen-Dazs to suggest they start making them, but like most people I never got around to doing it. So imagine my surprise and delight when a box of my dream treats arrived at our door.
The regular Häagen-Dazs bars, especially the vanilla with dark chocolate coating, are my favorite readily-available-in-a-freezer-case-near-serious-eaters-everywhere treat of any kind, but they just have too many calories (300 to be exact) to eat guiltlessly.
But the snack-sized coffee almond bars fit the ball. An entire bar is less than 200 calories, 190 to be exact. It is crunchy from the almonds and the toffee on the milk chocolate coating, it's creamy because it's made with Häagen-Dazs' regular high-butterfat vanilla ice cream, and it's substantial enough so that I managed to make it last through a short inning during the Yankee game last night.
Now when I get on the scale this morning, we'll see if my body agrees with my assessment that I'm going to be able to eat one of these every other day at least.
The problem with today's weigh-in is Häagen-Dazs also sent along pints of four new flavors, vanilla honeybee, fleur de sel caramel, pomegranate chip, and vanilla honey with granola frozen yogurt. A pint of any one of these wonderful frozen desserts simply offers me too many access points to too much deliciousness. The portion control thing goes out the window when I'm faced with a pint of extraordinarily good ice cream. If that shows me to be weak, so be it. I tried to resist the siren call of those pints, but I have to admit I dirtied more than one spoon in the course of the week.
Anyway, here goes. I lost a pound. I'm down ten pounds to date. And I've found my real treat for dieting. My prayer has been answered. It's a good day in the neighborhood.
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11 Comments:
congrats, ed! 10 pounds - that's a good round number you can wrap your brain around.
i'd always heard that the first 10 and the last 10 were the hardest pounds to lose (or was it the first 5 and last 5?) at any rate, here's hoping it becomes less challenging for you as time goes on.
french tart at 9:28AM on 04/03/08
H-D minibars are just the thing for those of us who require a tiny perfect treat. (I'm not dieting but it doesn't take much to satisfy my craving for sweets.) My bf buys me the dark chocolate mini-bars: dark chocolate ice cream dipped in dark Belgian chocolate. If you're into chocolate--who isn't?--this is it.
hng23 at 10:14AM on 04/03/08
Haagen Dazs also makes cute little single portion sized containers of their regular ice creams. I recently saw them in my grocery store for $1.25. I was thinking they would be perfect for when my niece visits, but it would also be perfect for you, too. Not any crunch, though.
wookie at 10:30AM on 04/03/08
1. Have you ever tried skinny cow or edys ice pops--yum and low in calories/fat.
2. How do I get a job that sounds as exciting as yours?
3. Congrats on your 10lbs.
jaf at 10:37AM on 04/03/08
Congratulations on your ten-pound mark! I'm the same way with ice cream, so I'll keep an eye out for those Haagen Dazs bars. Tell them they can deliver some to my door whenever they want! ;D
OneWallKitchen at 11:14AM on 04/03/08
Good for you Ed!!! I just recently found something else you might like to try, without quite the calorie count as the H_D bars. Dove makes a mini sized treat too and only 70 calories, not quite as satisfying or large but I like the fact that I can have real choc, and real ice cream while still staying within my goal of snacks calorie counts. They wont last anywhere near an inning though:(
huney_bumper at 11:26AM on 04/03/08
Not only did you loose 10 pounds, you didn't gain weight...that's what the killer is the 1 pound here and 1 pound there...Congratulations!
elaine nan at 11:56AM on 04/03/08
Many congrats, Ed. 10 pounds is a really big accomplishment. Those bars sound delicious. I will seek them out. Summer is definitely on the way and with it will come serious ice cream cravings.
Joy Manning at 1:38PM on 04/03/08
re: fleur de sel caramel, why is everyone all up in fleur de sel's business these days? admittedly, i've never tasted it, so i can't say whether or not the hype is deserved... but it seems like every damn food blog i read has been talking it up recently. and now haagen dazs?
bandwagons aside, i bet that ice cream is totally delicious.
boltchloer at 12:13AM on 04/04/08
HD makes a tasty product, but never mind the calories - the cholesterol count is roughly 3 to 4 times greater than other premium brands. I prefer my treats to not have such life threatening odds. Stonyfield Farms, which makes one of my 2 fave coffe ice creams, has more sane level of fat and cholesterol. And the other fave coffee, Double Rainbow, is also more reasonable. So is Black & Green's Vanilla, possibly the best vanilla I've ever tasted in a commercial ice cream.
GorillaBob at 7:19AM on 04/06/08
I have to add a big congrats to you, Ed and to echo jaf's comment about Edy's Ice Pops. Low fat, low calorie and big fruit flavor. I have an ice pop probably 3-5 nights per week.I love the lime, tangerine and lemonade varieties and as an occasional treat, the coconut is amazing.
I'm waiting on my blood test results...5 months on diabetes meds...30+ pounds lost and 20 to go. The Ice Pops are a really big help!
Scottzel at 6:36PM on 05/27/08