Melt away the pounds on the omelet-drumstick-burger diet
The extra me had to go.
After a bacchanalian summer spent in the United States visiting family and friends whom I hadn't seen in nearly three years, I noticed I was carrying some extra me through customs. It had stowed away in my normal repositories for fat - the stomach, the love handles, the face.
No sooner had I unpacked than I promptly did nothing about it. A change in diet usually necessitates a change in lifestyle and an increased effort at self-discipline. (Unless of course someone breaks your jaw, in which case it would have to be wired shut, and you'd have no choice but to drink liquids and lose weight.)
The breaking point came when I realized I had to lose weight or go shopping for fat boy jeans. So I asked myself some questions: Could I have fun without drinking? Could I enjoy food without sugar? Could someone just wire my mouth shut without breaking my jaw?
Even though I answered "I doubt it" to all of those questions, I embarked on a diet (that four-letter word).
At this time of year, with Christmas and New Year's so close, most people wait (homophone is weight) until after the holidays. But I think now is as good a time as any to start. If you lose some weight before the holidays, then you can enjoy the feasting without fasting, and the remedial work you might need to do afterward will certainly be less than if you had done nothing.
Diet needn't be a nasty four-letter word. It could easily be 16 letters, as in "weight management." There are myriad ways to go about dieting. The best idea is probably to consult your physician or a nutrition consultant. Or, you could pick up a book and just wing it, which is what I did.
Diets abound - with names like "Fit for Life" and "The Zone" - as well as philosophies, such as high carbohydrate, low carbohydrate, food mixing (don't eat high carbohydrates with protein), food pyramids.
I borrowed a book that detailed the Atkins Diet - the low carbohydrate, sugarless, high-protein and fat regimen - because the foods I could eat were ones I liked. High sugar and carbohydrate foods - such as bread, pasta, cereal, juice and starchy vegetables - were out, but unlimited amounts of meat and fish were in as well as limited doses of sour cream, cream cheese, salads and nuts.
According to some technical mumbo jumbo, which made sense at the time I read it, in this diet you basically burn fat instead of carbohydrates for energy. In a typical day I ate a ham and cheese omelet for breakfast, a hamburger (no bun or ketchup) and a small salad for lunch, and a roasted chicken and larger salad for dinner.
"You need to eat fat to lose fat," said Michelle Dietrich, manager of the Fitness Center at the Sheraton, but the Atkins Diet is "pretty extreme." (Someone whose name breaks down to "Diet-rich" should know.)
However, the principle of balancing proteins, fat and carbohydrates is sound. "It's a new paradigm we've entered," Dietrich said, a total rethink of the 1980s' idea of overloading on carbohydrates.
What the hell does a pair of dimes have to do with it, I wondered.
I tearfully waved goodbye to my friend beer and my other friends - sugar, caffeine, nicotine. I was determined to get down to my original weight - 8 pounds, 10 ounces. (Stolen joke alert.)
The one thing I hadn't counted on was that I didn't need any big events or excuses, such as visitors or going-away parties, to tempt me. Any excuse was valid, no matter how slight: The train is on time? Great! Let's have a beer to celebrate!
The diet has four parts. The two-week induction phase calls for a total abstention from sugar, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine - no baby steps or easing off the gas pedal. Hit the brakes. In this phase, the amount of carbohydrates is limited to less than 20 grams a day - a sort of shock therapy. Over the next three parts, carbohydrates are increased until you reach your ideal weight and you're at a level where you're neither gaining nor losing weight.
The bad news is that I was grouchy. The good news is that I lost weight, the bulk of it - 7.5 pounds - in the first week, and then I hit a plateau.
(The book warns about these.) For a week the scale didn't move. And then I dropped 2 pounds before hitting another plateau, and then another 1.5 pounds. In three weeks, I lost 11 pounds. Now comes the real test - keeping it off, especially when I resume quaffing beer, in moderation of course.
I wouldn't recommend taking my advice. A better idea would be to consult a trained doctor or consultant, or check out the Food Guide Pyramid. The pyramid basically calls for you to use slave labor to build a huge triangular structure, remove all your internal organs, put them in jars and then weigh yourself. You're guaranteed to have lost weight.
The food pyramid recommends a balanced approach to foods, though its advice runs counter to Atkins'. For example, it recommends a low-fat diet with six to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta a day, with fewer servings of vegetables and fruits and fewer yet of dairy products, meat and beans, the direct opposite of what Atkins recommends.
A doctor or nutrition specialist will most likely look at you, your eating habits and your lifestyle, intangibles that books or pamphlets can't pick up. Dietrich said many business people in Warsaw eat out three to four times a week, so the Atkins Diet's strict regimen of low carbohydrates and sugar might not work for them.
Other changes might include behavior modification; meaning, there's some trigger food out there you can't control.
For me, it's sweets. My body is their waste dump. As a youngster I daydreamed about getting locked overnight in the candy store and what I would then consume. (This daydream evolved as I aged, changing from a candy store to a porn shop as an adolescent, to a liquor store as a young adult, to some sort of weird hybrid as I reached my middle 30s - a candy-porn-liquor store.)
And what every book, pamphlet, doctor and specialist will also tell you is to get some damn exercise other than the half-liter curls.
Both Medicover, 829-9299, and the American Medical Center, 622-0489, have nutrition or weight-management specialists who can help you. Also, the Fitness Center at the Sheraton, 657-6101, and World Class at the Marriott, 630-5116, have trainers who can help with nutrition guidance.
After a bacchanalian summer spent in the United States visiting family and friends whom I hadn't seen in nearly three years, I noticed I was carrying some extra me through customs. It had stowed away in my normal repositories for fat - the stomach, the love handles, the face.
No sooner had I unpacked than I promptly did nothing about it. A change in diet usually necessitates a change in lifestyle and an increased effort at self-discipline. (Unless of course someone breaks your jaw, in which case it would have to be wired shut, and you'd have no choice but to drink liquids and lose weight.)
The breaking point came when I realized I had to lose weight or go shopping for fat boy jeans. So I asked myself some questions: Could I have fun without drinking? Could I enjoy food without sugar? Could someone just wire my mouth shut without breaking my jaw?
Even though I answered "I doubt it" to all of those questions, I embarked on a diet (that four-letter word).
At this time of year, with Christmas and New Year's so close, most people wait (homophone is weight) until after the holidays. But I think now is as good a time as any to start. If you lose some weight before the holidays, then you can enjoy the feasting without fasting, and the remedial work you might need to do afterward will certainly be less than if you had done nothing.
Diet needn't be a nasty four-letter word. It could easily be 16 letters, as in "weight management." There are myriad ways to go about dieting. The best idea is probably to consult your physician or a nutrition consultant. Or, you could pick up a book and just wing it, which is what I did.
Diets abound - with names like "Fit for Life" and "The Zone" - as well as philosophies, such as high carbohydrate, low carbohydrate, food mixing (don't eat high carbohydrates with protein), food pyramids.
I borrowed a book that detailed the Atkins Diet - the low carbohydrate, sugarless, high-protein and fat regimen - because the foods I could eat were ones I liked. High sugar and carbohydrate foods - such as bread, pasta, cereal, juice and starchy vegetables - were out, but unlimited amounts of meat and fish were in as well as limited doses of sour cream, cream cheese, salads and nuts.
According to some technical mumbo jumbo, which made sense at the time I read it, in this diet you basically burn fat instead of carbohydrates for energy. In a typical day I ate a ham and cheese omelet for breakfast, a hamburger (no bun or ketchup) and a small salad for lunch, and a roasted chicken and larger salad for dinner.
"You need to eat fat to lose fat," said Michelle Dietrich, manager of the Fitness Center at the Sheraton, but the Atkins Diet is "pretty extreme." (Someone whose name breaks down to "Diet-rich" should know.)
However, the principle of balancing proteins, fat and carbohydrates is sound. "It's a new paradigm we've entered," Dietrich said, a total rethink of the 1980s' idea of overloading on carbohydrates.
What the hell does a pair of dimes have to do with it, I wondered.
I tearfully waved goodbye to my friend beer and my other friends - sugar, caffeine, nicotine. I was determined to get down to my original weight - 8 pounds, 10 ounces. (Stolen joke alert.)
The one thing I hadn't counted on was that I didn't need any big events or excuses, such as visitors or going-away parties, to tempt me. Any excuse was valid, no matter how slight: The train is on time? Great! Let's have a beer to celebrate!
The diet has four parts. The two-week induction phase calls for a total abstention from sugar, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine - no baby steps or easing off the gas pedal. Hit the brakes. In this phase, the amount of carbohydrates is limited to less than 20 grams a day - a sort of shock therapy. Over the next three parts, carbohydrates are increased until you reach your ideal weight and you're at a level where you're neither gaining nor losing weight.
The bad news is that I was grouchy. The good news is that I lost weight, the bulk of it - 7.5 pounds - in the first week, and then I hit a plateau.
(The book warns about these.) For a week the scale didn't move. And then I dropped 2 pounds before hitting another plateau, and then another 1.5 pounds. In three weeks, I lost 11 pounds. Now comes the real test - keeping it off, especially when I resume quaffing beer, in moderation of course.
I wouldn't recommend taking my advice. A better idea would be to consult a trained doctor or consultant, or check out the Food Guide Pyramid. The pyramid basically calls for you to use slave labor to build a huge triangular structure, remove all your internal organs, put them in jars and then weigh yourself. You're guaranteed to have lost weight.
The food pyramid recommends a balanced approach to foods, though its advice runs counter to Atkins'. For example, it recommends a low-fat diet with six to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta a day, with fewer servings of vegetables and fruits and fewer yet of dairy products, meat and beans, the direct opposite of what Atkins recommends.
A doctor or nutrition specialist will most likely look at you, your eating habits and your lifestyle, intangibles that books or pamphlets can't pick up. Dietrich said many business people in Warsaw eat out three to four times a week, so the Atkins Diet's strict regimen of low carbohydrates and sugar might not work for them.
Other changes might include behavior modification; meaning, there's some trigger food out there you can't control.
For me, it's sweets. My body is their waste dump. As a youngster I daydreamed about getting locked overnight in the candy store and what I would then consume. (This daydream evolved as I aged, changing from a candy store to a porn shop as an adolescent, to a liquor store as a young adult, to some sort of weird hybrid as I reached my middle 30s - a candy-porn-liquor store.)
And what every book, pamphlet, doctor and specialist will also tell you is to get some damn exercise other than the half-liter curls.
Both Medicover, 829-9299, and the American Medical Center, 622-0489, have nutrition or weight-management specialists who can help you. Also, the Fitness Center at the Sheraton, 657-6101, and World Class at the Marriott, 630-5116, have trainers who can help with nutrition guidance.
