Entries tagged with 'diets'
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"Papacito, you don't need relaxed-fit jeans. Have you lost weight or something?" For me, someone who has wrestled with a weight problem my entire life, clothes-shopping has always been an exercise in desperation and denial. Even as a preteen I was always trying to convince my mother and the salesperson at our local clothier, Meyer's, that I didn't need to limit my choices to the clothes in the "Husky" section of the store. For the last 20 years I've hated the fact that the only clothing store I could find a wide (pun intended) selection of pants in my size, 46x30, was Rochester Big & Tall. I used to console myself by telling my wife that at Rochester Big &...
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Do you ever go out of your way not to eat something seriously delicious? Until I started my diet, I never did. In fact, I've spent my life convincing friends, loved ones, and colleagues that barbecue joints, pizzerias, and fried chicken shacks were in fact on our way even though they might have been ten miles out of the way. When we were in South Carolina on vacation I convinced my wife and son and some friends that Sweatman's Barbecue was right down the road. Of course the road turned out to be 30 miles long. Twenty years ago I convinced my then boss that Lexington Barbecue 1 was right on the way to our ad agency pitch at Hanes...
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Or Is It Just the Ones I See? Yesterday I was at doctor number six's office in my quest to find out the source of my chest tightness (my worry is that acid reflux is not the only explanation). I was telling Dr. X (I am hiding his identity to protect the hungry), a cardiologist, about what I was experiencing when he interrupted me. "All right, let's see if we can find out why you're feeling this way," he said. "By the way, I must say that you have my dream job. I love to eat." Dr. X, like five other doctors before him that I've seen in the past year, wanted to talk to me about food and restaurants....
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I should have known the moment I landed in New Orleans last Friday night that lots of restaurant leftovers were looming. Why? Because when I order in a New Orleans restaurant, I convince myself that I might never get to that restaurant again. Which, of course, is preposterous and absolutely untrue. I have been to New Orleans probably 20 times in the last 30 years, for nonfood business purposes, on assignment to write about the city's astonishing food and music culture, and with my family. So convincing myself I might never get to these New Orleans restaurants again is the ultimate overeater's rationalization. It is true, however, that these days, now that I'm in eating-everything-just-less-of-it mode, I like to order...
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"I was being really careful, taking only one bite of everything, but you don't have to know differential calculus to realize that comes out to 20 bites of insanely rich and serious delicious food." All week I've exhibited what I consider to be great self-control, and I fear it's going to come to naught. My interim daily weigh-ins have not been encouraging, and I don't know why. Perhaps I need to reflect more carefully on what I really did eat this week? Last Saturday we headed to Baltimore for the weekend for a friend's surprise birthday party. We spent that afternoon wandering around the city. It was really fun and mostly not food-related, though I did have a few bites...
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I knew this week was going to be trouble. Big trouble. I knew Thinner was going to be fickle and cranky and maybe downright rebellious, assisted in no small part by his partner, Mr. Metabolism. Mr. Metabolism was cross with me because I had crossed a line in his view, the 230 pound line. And when you cross a line with Mr. Metabolism you better be prepared to back it up big time with a downright abstemious week. Otherwise Mr. Metabolism will bounce you right back to the 230s and not even think twice. Because that's what he likes to do: Get you feeling confident and publicly declaring your 229-ness and then bam, he and his pal Thinner in the...
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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...
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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]...
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Oprah gained 40 pounds, and one of her vices was blue corn chips. Hain-Celestial, the makers of the chips Oprah held up in the episode, gently encouraged her to stick to a single serving. On the same note, the Times warns that foods with a "health halo" can be evil....
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Yesterday, three Canadian men completed the fastest trek across the Antarctica to the South Pole in just under 34 days. "They kept themselves fueled with a 7,000-calorie-a-day diet of deep-fried bacon, cheese and huge chunks of butter." [via Neatorama]...
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