I admit it. My life is not exactly made to order for conventional dieting programs. In any given week I end up going to a couple potential diet-busting events that could make my Friday morning Serious Eats weigh-in problematic. So I've adopted some strategies and tactics that may sound nutty but have been surprisingly effective. For example, I weigh myself every day, which Weight Watchers frowns on as regular practice. I know my weight can fluctuate two and even three pounds depending on how much water I am retaining, even without going to one of these food events. But by getting on the scale every day, I get some sense of how I have fared each day and can adjust...
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If you have a flute of Champagne and a raisin and you're really bored, you can plop the raisin into the glass and watch it "dance." This movement is due to the repeating accumulation (causing the raisin to rise) and loss (causing the raisin to drop) of carbon dioxide bubbles on the raisin's irregular surface. The first time I saw this trick was on the first day of my 7th grade science class, when my teacher showed us a glass of translucent yellow-greenish liquid containing a few dark, bouncing blobs. She insisted it was a glass of urine with swimming bugs in it. While she was probably trying to teach us some kind of scientific property (besides see how...
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