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"Diets" Grains & Seeds Three
Bites II
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When you look towards one shoulder do you see a donut and on the other a bunch of lettuce? Me too.
My love for food and cooking has really effected my waistline. I have close to 100 cookbooks and each time I go on an extreme diet I don't open any of them. I resort to simple, bland food that's poached, boiled or broiled and leave the table feeling very unsatisfied. When I was on Atkins I ate roasted chicken or broiled salmon with grilled vegetables (no noodles, no potatoes or rice... uggh!). And of course I had hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Lots and lots of eggs. On the Zone, if I wanted to incorporate oatmeal into my breakfast I'd have to add something bizarre like a tiny hunk of cheese or 3 egg whites or even cottage cheese to "keep me in the zone". Being "in the zone" left me feeling "out of whack". I also had to count, weigh, & measure.... all the things I LOVE. Gag. It did seem like a healthy plan but it was like having a part time job on top of my full work schedule. Dieting is miserable.
I actually
read an interesting book on the subject: French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure Why is my site titled "Three Bites Food Blog" you ask? The author's theory is that we really only enjoy the first three bites of something... everything after that is just monotonous repetition. Basically after the first three bites we're shoveling food into our mouths until the plate is empty. She says "eat what you want in moderation!". Instead of immersing oneself into the tiny details of dieting and nutrition and "pounds", she feels we should instead eat small portions and avoid weighing ourselves too often. She uses what's called the "zipper test" - when her pants start feeling tight, she increases her exercise and decreases her portions. I guess that's goodbye to my string-tie sweats and shorts with an adjustable waist. Great. Each week I will post at least one new recipe found within my cookbook collection. It'll be a kitchen notebook of an everyday cook and will journal my experience working through my library of books. There is a small group of cooks that list as an accomplishment having prepared all 500+ recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering The Art of French Cooking". A judge on Iron Chef is among them (she also wrote a book about it titled "Julie & Julia"). Since I already have an enormous collection of cookbooks and absolutely no interest in venturing into the world of sweet breads and organ meats, I will work through each of my books. I will tweak each recipe to fit my tastes and needs and discuss my "Three Bites". I will also introduce a new grain or other "healthy" ingredient as I go along and slowly swap out the bad stuff in my diet with new and great tasting healthy foods. I will increase the amount of vegetables and fruit I consume and will even attempt to make them tasty and exciting. Instead of "denying" myself cheesecake, I will first eat all of the healthy food on my plate and if I'm still hungry I will try a small piece... no more than 3 bites. I will stay true to the "everything in moderation" theory as best I can by implementing the French way of eating and will post updates on my progress as I go (each post will be dated). I'll have three substantial meals a day, consuming smaller portions and lots of fruits and vegetables, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, drinking plenty of water and not depriving myself of treats every once in awhile. And I will also post my progress with exercise (click here for running log). Can I put the fork down after three bites? Only time will tell. Can I actually cook the food I love and actually lose weight? Or will I have to toss the cookbooks and be exiled to the mundane life of brown rice with steamed vegetables? This is the diary of my culinary journey to a healthier me... somewhere in between the lettuce and the donut.
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A quick synopsis, it addresses the issue of eating
for pleasure without having to wear a moo-moo, something I'll be in soon if I
don't start making some changes in my attitude towards food and dieting. I
need to be free of associating food with "guilt" and this plan seems
to put me on the right track. The author, Guiliano, sympathizes that deprivation can
lead to overindulgence and treats her favorite foods as a pleasure that needs to
be sated, rather than a battle to be fought. It's what's known as the
"French paradox"... they love their wine, cheese and carbs and
appreciate food far more than most yet they are thinner and healthier than diet-obsessed
Americans. They eat slower and in smaller quantities but seem to enjoy the
process of dining more than many of the people I am surrounded by.
