Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul (8 page)

But the overall plan is not low-carb, or even necessarily low-fat or low-calorie. It’s more a modified lifestyle that teaches you to eat the right carbs, the right fats and the right proteins—and make it a part of your permanent life plan rather than a crash course into fitting into those too-tight jeans.

As a sugar aficionado, those first few days were a bit intense for me. I felt like I was in a state of perpetual PMS. I wasn’t hungry; I ate my fill of egg whites and fresh veggies and grilled chicken—but what I was going through was hardcore sugar withdrawal. I’m a Sagittarius and thus possess a soul that demands instant gratification. And while my egg-white omelet with mozzarella and mushrooms was very satisfying, darn it, I was used to my morning bagel!

As those initial few days passed, I gradually grew less cranky. I ended up losing ten pounds, and an entire size, in the first two weeks.

The purpose of Phase 1 is a pseudo-detox; you are ridding your body of its addiction to sugar and simple carbs so that you can “retrain” it with the right ones later on. Once that hardcore phase is over, Phase 2 begins. During that phase, you gradually reintroduce your body to starches and fruits, very carefully and slowly, paying careful attention to what particular starches make your metabolism freak out. Refined sugars and starches are naughty now and always. Whole grains, oats, brown rice and sweet potatoes are all fine, and actually, pretty darn good for you if you don’t go crazy with them.

South Beach is meant to be a lifestyle, not a diet, so of course, treats will happen. If it’s your birthday, have the cake (a slice, not the entire sheet!), or indulge in a night of yummy Tex-Mex sometimes, as I do. The idea, though, is to not use those treats as a crutch. “Oh my God! I ate a brownie! It’s all over . . . I might as well give up.”

Over the course of about eight months, I lost fifty pounds and went from a size XL Misses to XS Juniors. I have more energy than I have ever had before, and I’ve learned to not only crave the good stuff but be repelled by that which is naughty. Do I cheat sometimes? Sure. It’s called living. But I don’t let food control me anymore. I’m too busy enjoying life on the Beach . . . which, every now and then, just might include a fresh, hot slice of seeded Jewish rye.

Aly Walansky

Morning Walk

I
t doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters
who I remember he was.

Anne Sexton

I am my father’s daughter.

It was 6:30 on a Saturday morning and most sane people were still dreaming dreams, turning over in their warm beds and ignoring alarm clocks. Why was I walking around our neighborhood?

I am my father’s daughter.

I thought about taking a shortcut—if I turned right at the next street, I could cut ten minutes off my walk and soon be home, savoring a warm cup of coffee with the morning paper.

I am my father’s daughter.

This phrase became a mantra as I forced myself to walk those extra blocks. Ever since I had made the decision to lose weight by becoming more physically active, I had to daily talk myself out of excuses for not following through with my new exercise plan.

I am my father’s daughter.

My father had been a smoker. He started smoking cigarettes when he was thirteen years old, stubbornly maintaining his habit into his seventies. My sister and I had spent years trying to convince him to quit, but it took an X-ray of his lungs to give him the incentive he needed to finally do it, cold turkey, by sheer willpower. It had been five years since he smoked a cigarette, and I was so proud of him.

I am my father’s daughter.

I was skinny as a teenager. Everyone was always encouraging me to take seconds, and sometimes even thirds, as a child. So I had gotten used to heaping my plate full and then eating every single bite so that I didn’t waste any food. This was never a problem when I was thirteen years old, but when I reached my thirties, the pounds started adding up until the morning that I stepped on a scale and realized that I was 255 pounds.

I am my father’s daughter.

For a few years, I tried to find excuses. It was my metabolism. I ate the same way I had always eaten, so why else was I fat? Maybe I had a thyroid problem. As more years passed and I moved into my forties, I blamed the media for promoting a “thin culture” of unrealistic body shapes. I scoffed at friends on fad diets, convincing myself that my diet was healthier than theirs. I used to laugh about my sister-in-law’s skin turning orange from eating too many carrots. Surely, a few extra pounds were preferable to that?

I am my father’s daughter.

When my doctor diagnosed me with high blood pressure and prescribed medication, he told me that if I lost weight, I probably wouldn’t need the medication. When I fell down some stairs at work and the clinic x-rayed my knee, I was told that the fall had not injured my knee but that my knee didn’t look good, due to the strain of my weight. I decided I needed to make a change in my lifestyle.

I am my father’s daughter.

After six months of half-hour walks, four to five times a week, I lost forty pounds. Then I added weight circuit training three times a week and monitored the portions of food on my plate, and now, almost two years later, I am seventy-five pounds lighter. At a recent family get-together to celebrate my father’s five-year anniversary of giving up smoking, relatives exclaimed over my trimmer, fitter figure and asked me how I did it. I caught my dad’s eye.

I am my father’s daughter.

Deborah P. Kolodji

Gone to the Dogs

M
y doctor told me to stop having intimate
dinners for four. Unless there are three other
people.

OrsonWelles

I’ve struggled with weight problems all my life.

During college, I tried every fad diet out there, from grapefruit juice with every meal to two weeks of nothing but boiled rice and fruit. Fromthe time I was nineteen until I turned forty, my weight yo-yoed by as much as sixty pounds. I’d keep it off for a year or two, and then gradually the needle on the bathroom scale would creep back up.

Then a personal miracle entered my life, in the form of two Labrador retrievers.

My wife and I had been married for about a year when we got our second dog. Harley, our chocolate Lab, had just turned eight months when her sister, Buffy, a yellow Lab, was born. On that day, our lives changed forever.

All dogs require regular exercise to stay fit, but anyone who has ever owned a Labrador knows that it’s a breed with boundless energy. Most experts agree a Lab needs at least two miles of brisk walking each day, and a typical Lab can do that and then be ready for a few hours of swimming or running afterward.

Harley and Buffy are no exception to the rule. We soon discovered that if we didn’t give them a good workout each day, all their pent-up energy would lead them into all sorts of trouble around the house. As soon as Buffy was old enough, we instituted a regular exercise program for them, designed to tire them out so they’d sleep all night.

Weekdays begin at 6:00 AM with a brisk, half-mile to mile walk, depending on the weather. Only the heaviest snows or rains keep us from our morning constitutional. Then, after work, we do a minimum of two miles, often accompanied by games of chase-the-ball or stick. In the warm weather, we will often increase it to three miles.

But it doesn’t end there. On the weekends the afternoon walk begins earlier, and usually involves a nice three- or four-mile hike in one of the local state parks.

Harley and Buffy are now eight and seven, respectively, and their exercise program, combined with nutritious food and no table scraps, has them in better shape than “any other Lab I’ve seen,” according to our veterinarian.

The dogs love their daily exercise; the same can’t be said for their masters. It’s never easy to drag yourself from a warm bed on a cold or rainy winter day, bundle up, drive to the park and then trudge through the muck and puddles while a frenetic eighty-pound Energizer Bunny romps alongside you.

Even in the summer, there are often other things we’d rather be doing: relaxing after a hard day’s work, taking care of the house, visiting friends. But when you make a commitment to a pet, it has to be honored. So we still take those walks, every day.

Of course, there’s another reason we strap on those leashes.

Since dedicating ourselves to keeping our dogs fit, my wife and I have each lost more than forty pounds and kept it off. As soon as we realized the daily exercise was working as good for us as for our canine companions, we found the motivation we’d been lacking to stick to our own healthy diets.

Gone are the days when we’d give in to temptation and eat fast food, or buy popcorn and candy at the movies. In the past four years, I’ve had approximately twelve cans of soda. Before that, I drank it with lunch and dinner every day.

When we want Chinese food, we chop vegetables and tofu and make our own stir-fry. We measure portions of pasta and rice. The only snacks after dinner are fruit and sugar-free Jell-O. We’ve eliminated cheese on hamburgers and substituted veggie burgers for the beef patties.

On the occasions when we go out for dinner with friends or family, we make sure to fill up at the salad bar, skip the appetizers and order grilled chicken or some other healthy choice.

When one of us is lured into temptation, the other is always there to provide that most effective of all dissuasions: “Honey, if we eat that we’ll have to walk an extra mile every day this week.” Those words have the power to make either of us drop the candy or frozen pizza as if it were poison.

Of course, walking by itself isn’t enough of an exercise program for a middle-aged person fighting the never-ending battle of the bulge. We’ve set up a small exercise room in our basement, with stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical machine and even a Bowflex for the arms and chest. On days when the rain, snow or temperature are too horrid for even diehard dog-walkers to venture outside, the home gym is a warm, dry alternative.

I’ve also gotten my wife to play golf with me, and we’re both bad enough at the game that we get plenty of exercise walking from cart to ball and back again.

But in the end, it all comes down to the dogs. They’re our impetus for rising early each morning and heading back out again in the afternoons when all we want to do is sit on the deck with a glass of wine.

The funny thing is that all the excuses we had for never doing something like this before have turned out to be just that—excuses. No time? We still get everything done that we always did. It’s too cold? Five minutes after coming home, it’s like we never went out. Skipping a day won’t hurt? Not only do Harley and Buffy make us crazy by bouncing off the walls, but we’ve found that we don’t feel good if we skip a day.

Most importantly, all four of us are healthy, which means we’ll be together for many years to come.

Greg Faherty

Skinny Munchies

J
ust think of all those women on the
Titanic
who
said, “No, thank you,” to dessert that night. And
for what!

Erma Bombeck

Dieting is an embarrassing occupation, one I would really rather keep quiet about. My logic goes something like this: If no one sees me buying diet food, they certainly won’t notice the extra fifty pounds I’m hauling around on my 5’3” frame. Perhaps it isn’t the diet that’s as embarrassing as the failure to stay on the diet.

Discretion is essential when shopping, and knowing your way around the local grocery store is crucial. It’s reassuring to know where the Marshmallow Mateys are when you’re in a hurry for a nutritious breakfast. Or which aisle to avoid when toting a toddler with a long reach. Or where along the cookie aisle some teenage bag boy has stocked the Chips Ahoy.

After moving to a small town from a large metropolitan city, I was unable to locate a favorite low-cal snack in the local grocery store, so I decided to inquire at the register. Right away, a voice inside my head raised an alarm.
Don’t
do that
, the voice warned.
Just keep looking. It might be embarrassing
if you ask and they don’t have it.

Oh, give me a break
, I argued withmyself,
I’m thirty years old.
I can certainly ask for a product in a grocery store. I am an adult.

You really might want to think this through a bit more, dear,
the voice wheedled.

Bug off,
I answered.

At least I wasn’t talking out loud like the lady two aisles over debating whether Windex would kill the ants in her petunia bed.

At the checkout, a slim, young woman whose name badge read “Clarista” began checking out my groceries. I got my nerve up and leaned over the package of Ding-Dongs just crossing her scanner.

“Do you know if you carry Skinny Munchies?” I inquired.

Pausing in midscan, she replied, “Skinny what?” A tiny smile spread across her face.

“Skinny Munchies,” I answered, lowering my eyes in a flicker of panic. “They’re a Weight Watchers product, uh, little chips that are legal for Weight Watchers to, uh, snack on . . .”