"What does this mean? It means that when I go to Katz's I have a third of a pastrami sandwich...It means that when eating pizza, I try to make sure it has a supremely light crust and sparse toppings." I had a revealing conversation with Serious Eater Linnea yesterday afternoon that started me thinking about the exact nature of my diet. I was talking about what I was going to eat last night in anticipation of my weigh-in this morning. I mentioned the slice of pizza possibility. "A slice of pizza?" Linnea responded incredulously. "Doesn't that have a ton of fat? There's all that cheese. What kind of diet are you on, anyway?" I told her that the pizza I... More

thebigskinnybook.com Cartoonist Carol Lay toiled with weight for years, until she reached her goal of 125 pounds. (She's kept it off ever since.) In her new graphic novel-memoir-motivational diet book, The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, Lay uses imaginative story lines to show it ain't easy—like George Clooney showing up, tempting her with sausage-egg biscuits and hash browns. But her will power was strong enough to slam the door on him, and again when the senior chick magnet showed up in a silk robe, dangling a nightcap at her. On another page, evil strikes again, but in the form of a girl scout at the door. How will the heroine combat Thin Mint temptation? A chainsaw. Lay... More

"And as I approach my birthday in four days, I keep thinking about what a fine birthday present I will be giving myself when those magic numbers come up." As any serious eater who has wrestled with a weight problem will tell you, there are certain numbers in your head that loom ever so large--milestones and targets that you can't stop thinking about. Sometimes these numbers come in ten-pound increments. Other times they come out of books or tables. Though I started blogging about Ed Levine's Serious Diet almost exactly a year ago, when I weighed 252, I had actually started losing weight six months before that, when I was horrified to find that I was tipping the scales at... More

marketingcharts.com/topics/behavioral-marketing According to a 2008 Simmons National Consumer Study, 23.6% of Americans are dieting and say mayo is their favorite "treat," right after ice cream and sorbet. Whoa—is mayo really a guilty pleasure food to so many? More than cookies? Granted, I loathe the white globs of blech, but always figured it was "just" a condiment to liven up tuna or BLTs, not something to sneak out of bed for secret midnight spoonfuls. [via Goodies First]... More

"And when those duck fat fries at Hot Doug's call your name, Oprah, call or IM me instead. We can be our own mini diet support group." Oprah Winfrey, whom I admire a great deal, recently fessed up on her show about her weight gain. She said that at that moment she weighed over 200 pounds. Now having gone on a very public diet this last year, I can relate to what she's going through. And I don't have to withstand the scrutiny of millions of adoring fans for an hour every day on national television. So I have an idea. I don't want to sound presumptuous or anything, but I think Oprah and I should join forces in our... More

Have you ever had a good fat-free muffin? I'm not talking about one that was simply passable when toasted and slathered with jam. I mean a really excellent fat-free muffin: tender and moist with a crunchy, golden top, and brimming with juicy berries. I certainly haven't. To paraphrase the writer Phoebe Damrosch, author of Service Included, muffins are nothing more than an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. And just as I've never encountered a delicious slice of fat-free German chocolate, red velvet, or lemon layer, I've never come across a diet muffin that didn't taste cloyingly sweet and a bit too much like sand. But that's not for lack of trying. Whether shrink-wrapped next to the cash register at... More