Introducing the Hungry Vegan Society

Actual photo of the HVS as a child, during her epiphany.

Vegans: so easy to make fun of. So easy to dismiss as wackadoodles. God put animals on this planet for us to marry decorate old hotels eat. So what does one do when one of his longest-held best friends come out of the closet as a card-carrying, yoga-teaching, animal-loving VEEgan?

The HVS and I have been many things to each other over the years, including friends, confidants, co-workers, bike partners, mourners for our prospective parents and diners. In fact, I even knew the HVS was just the HS. So when the V got slipped in between the H and the S, I couldn't just scoff and walk away. I've been questioning my assumptions and knee-jerk prejudices ever since.

When I lived in England my junior year of college, I met lots of people who never met a Jew before. Before then, all the Europeans I met back home were the ones who were adventurous enough to explore the U.S. Now I was meeting the ones who were like most Americans, never bothering to get a passport and never venture far outside the comfort zone of their own town, city or state. But in all honesty, the HVS was not the first vegan I ever met. Yes, I was once a (very bad example of a) vegan.

It was the 90s, I was in college, we were all exploring our bodies and our minds. It was rebellious to be vegetarian, more so to go further and eschew all animal products. I've always been of a mind that animals and people are not equal, and while it is our responsibility to treat the world with respect, there is nothing wrong with slaughtering animals for the benefit of man. (I've since come to conclude that industrial meat production trades on cruelty in the pursuit of profit, but that's for another blog post about capitalism and other overly serious things.) My attitude was that perhaps not eating animal is healthier -- hey, a horse can have a diet of 100% hay and water and look how trim and massively muscular THEY are!

Try my all-hay all-the-time diet! 

But I did not eat hay all day. I ate potato chips. Lots of potato chips. Pasta. Rice. Bread. I was not a big fan of fruit and vegetables. Surprisingly, I never really lost any weight. I wanted to cut out meat (and eventually dairy), but I didn't want to change my eating habits or lifestyle.  I was vegetarian for a few years, vegan for a year or so, and I was on the slope back down vegetarianism (OK, vegan with an exception for DESERT -snort-) when I met the HVS.

Some people can defend their prejudices by claiming they have a token "black friend", and I can't say I'm that close to any vegans other than the HVS -- but that would be reducing her to "just a vegan". She's also a surly Israeli! (Well, not so surly since yogasizing her life....) As some one I hold dear and love, she has inspired me to cook many meals veganly. In fact, I really enjoy the challenge of cooking for her and my wifey enjoys it, too. I've dabbled in yoga over the years thanks to the HVS and as much as I'm wary to admit it, there is something to it I don't fully understand, particularly the effect of back bends on my state of mind.

I don't fully understand....how cheesy this graphic designer makes yoga seem.

Unlike my potato-chip driven quest for rebellion, the HVS seems to be healthier, happier and more on point that I ever was.

I dubbed my friend the Hungry Vegan Society while we were colleagues because of our shared fondness for lunch. My impression was that she seemed to allow her day to both be driven by, and derived a lot of fun from, her hunger and the acquiring of food. While we would go out together, her vegan requirements would actually make things more fun and slightly take me out of my comfort zone by proxy. I think part of my inspiration for going to culinary school came from seeing how she operated in the world. You can't see how big the world of food is until you find someone living in a country where they wear their underwear outside of their pants.

All citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check.

A few years ago the HVS took me to Babbo for my birthday -- I really wanted to go, but I was a little surprised because this was the place famous for putting beef-cheek ravioli on the radar, and other off-cuts that previously would have gone to waste or shipped over seas. The restaurant's service was top-rate, and was able to assemble a really good-looking off-menu vegan dinner for her while I ate my tripe and cheeks. The HVS is not some judgemental cliche of a fanatic or grating lecturer. The HVS is as cool cucumber, if not cooler, than any bacon-loving foodiot or omnivorous epicurean.

A foodiot in his natural habitat.

So there you have it. I am not a vegan, and I don't think I will ever be. I can't say that with certainty as long as there is someone in my life like the HVS, with just as much health and happiness as I have, if not more. As I write more on topics related to veganism (and topics suggested to me by the HVS), it'll be filtered through a starting point of curiosity and open-mindedness, rather than dismissiveness and snark. (oh, maybe a little snark!) And I have the HVS to thank for that.

TODAY'S COUNT: 2310
Started the day off right with getting laundry done and lifting weights. Had to skip last week's bike ride, felt good to move a little. Dinner was a little small by accident, but took houseguest M on a nice 2 hour casual bike ride around downtown, fueled by a large piece of dark chocolate.

Tomorrow....my monthly weigh-in. -sigh-

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, steel cut oatmeal, water, 375 cal


LUNCH: 1pm, jerk chicken patty, soya patty, 700 cal
First time eating a "soya" patty from Golden Krust. Not good, a soy mince meant to mimic beef but ends up tasting oddly tofuey. Gonna try the spinach patty next time.

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, chocolate ice cream cone, 250 cal
According to the side of the Mr. Softee truck, a cone cane be anywhere from 190 to 270 cal. The cone felt on the heavier side, so I estimated bigger.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, stuffed rigatoni, +/- 100 cal
Edie wasn't too into this dinner, I ended up eating 4 pieces before throwing it out. Realized it might not have been negligable, and did the math, and low and behold, a lot of those kinds of bites add up.


DINNER: 6:30pm, sauteed shrimp, steamed string beans, brown rice, 7oz diet sprite, 560 cal
String beans from today's CSA are slammin', only problem is too few of them. In a bowl sealed in plastic, microed for 1 minute, perfection.

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, dark chocolate, +/- 300 cal

Wonder-ful Weekend

Oy vey!

There is a scene in Hannah & Her Sisters where Woody Allen's character is trying to find a new religion..... here he is taking a stab at Christianity, I think it may be Catholicism:



That's pretty much how I (and every Jew you and I know) regard Wonder Bread: it's for the starchiest of goyim. It's white, it's squishy, it lacks substance and is only good for mayo, another ultragoy foodstuff. And this past weekend I shovelled in a load of Wonder.

For two of the three nights we were out in the Catskills, we stayed at a slightly ramshackle, totally charming Inn whose dirt in the cracks of the curved floorboards dated back to the 1790s. There was a surprisingly cavernous low-ceilinged dining room, decorated with abandoned detritus antiques heavy on the stuffed deer heads and guns. It was very quiet on our first morning when the innkeeper made us breakfast. When my wife asked who was to thank for the coffee, his friendly response credited "God". Technically correct, if perhaps not factually on point.

Did God come to the Catskills to make coffee for my wife? Michaele Weissman seems to think so.

The sentiment was very Christian, and so was the French toast. While we waited for our meal, I noticed the big toaster with a loaf of Wonder Bread next to it. When the French toast arrived, surprisingly artfully presented on a platter with a bit of butter and jelly on each piece, surrounded by a laurel of bacon, it was clear it's main feature was Wonder. I had to put my finger on a slice and taste it, to confirm it was butter and not mayo.

The innkeeper's French toast tasted great, light, fluffy, sweet. I went to the toast table, took a bit of raw Wonder out, took a nibble and...it tasted good, sweet, light, fluffy, kind of like a slightly chewy cake. I took the nibbled slice, and balled it up into a very small ball -- it was a wonder how tiny it got. The next day, unprovoked, my toddler did the same thing with a slice presented to her. Was it instinct or just good genes?

Wonder Bread is a product of industrialized food science -- the invention of the "perfect" bread. Unfortunately when it was invented, the idea of "perfect" was focused on being soft and airy (hence the balloons in the logo) and the idea of nutrition was not really factored in. In fact, it was factored out by the extreme (for the time) processing required to make wheat into something so spongy and soft.  Oddly enough, the history of Wonder is marked by an effort to add more and more nutrition back into the loaf.

Here are the ingredients in Wonder's classic white

Wheat Flour Enriched (Flour, Barley Malt, Ferrous Sulfate [Iron] , Vitamin B [Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid (Vitamin aB)] ) , Water, Corn Syrup High Fructose, Contains 22% or less Wheat Gluten, Salt, Soybean(s) Oil, Yeast, Calcium Sulphate (Sulfate), Vinegar, Monoglyceride, Dough Conditioner(s) (Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Dioxide) , Soy Flour, Diammonium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Yeast Nutrients (Ammonium Sulfate) , Calcium Propionate To Retain Freshness

When I bake simple wheat bread at home, here are the ingredients, in order of quantity:

Unbleached whole wheat flour, unbleached white flour, water, wheat gluten, dried milk powder, molasses, instant yeast, salt

I know exactly why each ingredient is in my bread. It's not a super-hippy bread that tastes like dirt and twigs, it tastes strongly like....bread. Not cake, but straight-up bready bread. I keep it in the freezer to avoid it going stale after a day. As for the wonder, a lot of the ingredients are vitamins to give the loaf back the nutrition taken away by processing, and a lot of the chemicals on the end of the list are simply for texture, shelf stability, color and feel.

This God-fearing innkeeper, with his flat grey buzz cut, military tattoos and Midwestern demeanor, has probably been eating Wonder bread since he was a kid, and didn't skimp on the mayo either. He probably hadn't given too much thought to it, other than it's cheap and it's tasty. And breakfast was exactly that. It was a vacation breakfast, but heaven help those who think it's a regular "part of a balanced diet", unless you plan on eating vitamin pills for lunch and cubes of fiber for dinner. Then again, in this modern age, the vitamin pill has been added to the bread.

TODAY'S COUNT: +/- 2350 cal
Woke up in the Catskills, all-you can eat buffet. Ate mindlessly, thought about it on the car trip back, and cut back on the eating accordingly. Guests came over for dinner bearing pizza, so that was an incalculable meal, too. Still, got hungry in the afternoon, quelled it with carrots, and got hungry in the evening, but skipped snacks in favor of water to be on the safe side of the budget.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, french toast, bacon, bowl of Cheerios and whole milk, small bowl of frosted flakes and milk, water, +/- 1000 cal


PM SNACK: 4pm, baby carrots, +/- 100 cal


DINNER: 6pm, 3 slices pizza, some fried zucchini, 21 oz diet sprite, +/- 1250 cal

Phriday Phun Quiz

I'm off to a wedding this weekend, so I'm going to skip the navel gazing deep into my belly insightful essay about food related matters and get right to the quiz. The wedding spot is actually out of cell reception, so food diary will be updated next week.

So. Look upon these questions. Click the right answer and be rewarded with the gift of bacon. Click the wrong answer, however, and be punished with the curse of bacon.

I'm too phat for yo stupid damn question.

Who is the best overweight rapper?

1. Pig Pun
2. Heavy D & the Boyz
3. the Fat Boys
4. Large Marge

This man is trying to:

1. Celebrate his wedding in the traditional style
2. create an internet meme
3. scrape cake-bits out of his bride's mouth
4. share his love of cake, delicious caaaake!

To my health?

Diet Coke is to Coke as:

1. soy chicken is to steak
2. Coldplay is to Radiohead
3. deeerp is to D'oh!
4. Bud Lite is to a kick in the nuts

The Frito Bandito:

1. THAT'S RACIST!
2. THAT'S DELICIOUS!!
3. THAT'S CARTOONISH!!!
4. THAT'S ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!!

Broiled Sole Soil

The author of this blog:

1. eats broiled soil.
2. needs to proof better.
3. wishes a reader caught it.
4. wishes for a reader.

Susan Powter is a Hypnotizing Twinkie

Susan Powter was a big deal in the 90s, along with C&C Music Factory and scrunchies. Before there was a Shamwow or a Tony Robbins, she was something of a mash up: a motivational huckster.

What Susan Powter was not:

• A doctor
• A nutritionist
• A dietician

What Susan Powter was:

• "housewife that figured it out"
• an awfully good, charismatic snake-oil salesperson

Thinking about Susie P yesterday, I did an in depth email survey of a representative segment of S.P.'s target market back then (a.k.a. emailing my wife, B.) I asked her, without internet-thinkin' googling, what her memory of SP was. She said:

powter = shaved head, telling (oprah? some interviewer) about the first time in her life she realized her thighs weren't rubbing up against each other. she was walking in a mall, i think, and she just stopped and started screaming: my thighs! my thighs!

I was impressed. I just remember her lookin' kinda hot in spandex and a butchie haircut, kinda smiling and shouting at people to bend to her will....and the catch-phrase that she hung her empire on: FAT MAKES YOU FAT. B remembered a very personal, charming story, irrefutable and mushy. I only remembered her bald-faced (bald-headed?) lie and, ummm, sex.

According to a lengthy profile in the NY Times at the time,

"It's not food that makes you fat. It's fat that makes you fat," Susan Powter thunders into her microphone, as she is broadcast live on the New York City radio station WPLJ. While she paces the stage, the women watch, transfixed. It's not just that her blond buzz cut so closely resembles Sinead O'Connor's. It's that if you're hungry enough and don't sit too close, she can look like a giant Twinkie.

I don't think SP looks anything like a twink....what's that? It's a what? Oh.

He he, the NY Times made the funny back in the 90s. Twinkies are always funny (twinks, not so much -- do NOT google "twink" without safe-search on). Anyway, remember, Susie P. is not a doctor, nutritionist or dietitian, the same way wonder-mom Jenny McCarthy is not a scientist or biologist, but still does real harm. Fat makes you fat. Hmmm. Let's look at some nutritional thinking from the 90s:

 Fat doesn't make you feel full, while carbohydrates take far longer to do so. Restricting calories doesn't help you to lose weight permanently because it leaves you hungry all the time and most sane people refuse to go to bed hungry when there's plenty of food around.

 Oddly enough, I had 3 strips of bacon instead of a big bowl of kolon-bloe. It was delicious but it didn't feel like enough, despite it having about the same calories at the bloe. My hunger remained in check until when it was supposed to. Of COURSE fat makes you feel full, it has TWICE the calories at carbs. Of course, you dismiss restricting calories and promote carbs, so you can sell a whole lotta junk like:

Sweeeeeet

These fat-free foods held the promise of weight reduction while literally eating your cake, too. Unfortunately, cake without fat is akin to wood pulp and cardboard so they pumped them up with sugar to mask the dull flavor. Even as a kid, I remember eating one of these things and thinking, "nope,too sweet." The sugar enabled these things to have more calories than their full-fat counterparts. The author goes on:

The key is to mix lots of different foods into the same dish, sweeten beans and corns with fruit, such as pineapple or apple slices, grapes or raisins and add lots of spices.

AAAIGH!! EWWWW!! 90s food sucked!! Back to Susie:

"I just spoke at a big conference of the American Medical Association, and I said, 'Please tell me I'm being irresponsible, tell me if I'm saying anything wrong, and I'll stop.' And it was silent. Because the information is all out there. The problem is that no one understands it. I just interpret it. None of this is mine."

The medical establishment didn't object because they were equally in the dark. We now know, due to binging on things like Snackwells and spicy bean & pineapple salad, fat doesn't make you fat -- over consumption makes you fat. Remarkably, despite speaking 19 years in the past, Susie P took a personal jab at me:

"Do we need to keep food records every day?" one woman asks timidly. "Food records!" Powter shrieks. "If you have the time to write everything down, get a job. You have too much time."

A love a lady who speaks her mind, she was. She made untold millions of dollars back in the 90s with a veneer of being anti-diet establishment, but really, she was just a part of it, raking in the big bucks with books, videos, gyms, products, etc etc. In fairness, she did proselytize a lot of things that made sense, such as eating less, against obsessing over scale-readings and women's dependence on men, etc. It was the media and lazy people who perhaps took "Fat Makes You Fat" out of context and put it into quite fattening Snackwells. So what does SP say now?


OOooh, she's hypnotic! She says "Daily Caloric Consumption Chart" sooo many times...must follow the Daily Caloric Consumption Chart. All hail the Daily Caloric Consumption Chart. Chart chart chart. Xenu. Here is the chart she speaks of:

Actually, I already follow the Daily Caloric Consumption Chart. You must obey the Daily Caloric Consumption Chart.

Susie P is pretty much towing the line of today's nutritional establishment. Though as a self proclaimed "Radical Feminist Lesbian", it's not completely shocking she doesn't appeal that much to today's housewives. Looking around her (not very updated) website, I can't help but really like her, though at arms length, the way you like a good friend who has some good ideas, but is susceptible to cults and paranoid conspiracy theories. Huckster? Perhaps. Charismatic? For sure. Saleswoman? The best. Source of advice on diet? Well, she has some really cool stories about walking in the mall with her thighs...

THE COUNT:2500
Started the day off with some surprisingly filling bacon, once it sat in my stomach for about thirty minutes and made me feel full. B hoe late, but gramma was over to help out, and we ordered in Chinese. No idea how many calories, but kept the portions reasonable and the main dish vegetable-heavy, but it's safe to say probably half my budget came from the meal.


AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 8:15am, 3 slices of bacon, 300 cal


AM SNACK: 10am, 7oz diet coke, 0 cal

LUNCH: 12:15pm, Stoufer's French Bread pizzas, momma salad, 950 cal

DINNER: 6pm, shrimp & string beans in garlic sauce, veg fried rice, fried wontons, diet coke, water, +/- 1225

The Miracle Frito Diet

My wife did this diet...twice!

Due to the fact that I'm a guy and don't have society constantly judging my appearance, as well as the fact that I had parents who didn't drive me crazy about my weight, I've never indulged in "dieting" until now. But that's not the whole truth. As some experiment-friendly-straight people might say, "Except once, in high school."

Though I was a pudgy kid, it never bothered me much. In my last year of high school, I started my life-long love affair with bicycles by riding my older brother's 10-speed Ross to school. For matters of comfort, I would wear spandex shorts, and for matters of not-giving-a-damn, I'dwear them all day long at school. For some odd reason, wearing spandex all day gives rise to the idea of, "hey, if I lost weight, I'd go faster on the bike!" Well, that's what I told myself, but it was really more like, "hey, maybe if I lost a few pounds, I'd be more package and less fupa!" (link potentially NSFW) Hey, I was in high school.

Hey, chubby 90's college student!

How does a fat kid in the late 80s/early 90s lose weight? Did I go down the evil road to Susan Powter? (Ugg, I hate Susan Powter and all she stood for. She is evil. So pretty NO so evil!) No, I went to the forces of good... the siren song of the Frito Bandito!

The Frito Bandito: All snacks can be judged by their racist mascots.

Without any nail-biting or research into nutrition, I made some changes to my diet. I swapped out my every-day drinks of whole milk and apple juice for diet coke (because no way was I gonna drink water, ewwwww!) and I swapped out lunch all together for a bag of fritos, every day. With the focusing lense of 20+ years between me and then, I see I did two things here:

1. I reduced my daily calories
2. I increased my daily deliciousness

Nutritionally, there are all sorts things you could criticize about how I lost some chunk, but it worked. I had energy, I remained my happy/depressed/high schoolish self, and that was that. I arrived at college, where no one knew me, and quickly became a victim of the Freshman 15. Or in my case, the Freshman 35. Because diets are bullsh@t.

Beware the college cafeteria: a really douchy pop punk boy band might try to glom onto you.

Diet is a bad word -- it implies a limited time of change, after which one goes back to the patterns that caused the previous results. I don't know if I'll be recording my counts forever, or even counting calories forever, but I do know this: I need to limit my calorie intake forever. This is hard-won wisdom. Are you going to eat only cabbage soup....forever? Are you going to eat mounds of meat and gravy but no bread or potatoes....forever? It's easy to say forever (I'm looking at YOU, Justin Beiber!) but dedicating to it is a magnitude of a different order. I know it'll get easier with time, but the time has to be put in.

THE COUNT: 2,500
Went out to E's house to help her and T put together gift bags for their wedding this weekend. part of the bag were "smores kits" for a late night bonfire after the wedding, and a bunch of crackers and marshmallows mindlessly went in my maw. As we were leaving, I realized the packaging had calorie counts and I peeked. I wasn't sure how much I ate, not much, but was impressed with how calorie dense the snacks were, and I've estimated accordingly.

Dinner was surprisingly light, and I walked away from the meal just a tinge away from being hungry. Not satiated, but not quite hungry. Both at E's house and at the meal, I skipped proffered alcohol, which easily could have added 300-500 calories without thought.

So despite not being sure, I'm comfortable calling the day at my budget. So there.

AM SNACK: 6:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 8:15am, Fage yogurt with honey, almonds and vanilla, 460 cal


LUNCH: noon, grilled chicken breast on whole wheat toast, refried blackbeans, momma salad, 7oz diet coke, 780 cal


PM SNACK: 3:30pm, watermelon, 185 cal


PM SNACK: 7pm, graham crackers and marshmallows, water,  +/- 300 cal


DINNER: 9pm, 3 small slices pizza, cauliflower, asparagus with prosciutto and moz, beef carpacio & salad greens, small amount of chocolate cookie with whipped cream, water, +/- 750 cal

Coke Fiend

Ground flaxseed, home-brewed iced green tea, Greek yogurt, diet sodas, fresh fruit....

I've been ramping up the diet soda since dedicating myself to count calories.  This has me thinking of times past, darker times. I grew up with diet coke, as my dad was a bit of a fiend. In high school, I switched from whole milk and apple juice to diet coke and lost a bunch of pounds without thinking. Yes, my frenemies, my dad primed the pump for me to grow up to be a COKE FIEND! Well, DIET COKE FIEND.

By the time I finished college and moved back to New York City and got my first apartment, I was fueled by diet coke. I'm not sure how it got to be so extreme, it just slowly grew over the years. This is how it would roll:

1. Wake up, drink a 12oz can with whatever.
2. Get to work with a 16oz bottle.
3. Maybe have a 2nd 16oz bottle before lunch.
4. Have a can with lunch.
5. Sip on a liter through the afternoon.
6. A can or two with dinner.

That was a typical day, upwards of a gallon of the stuff. Hey, it's diet, right? The fact that my throat was always feeling a little raw from the acid didn't really strike me as a problem. I wasn't an addict, I just loved the stuff. Or that's what I thought, until Trouble came to visit and stay awhile.

At the time, I was the manager of an indie music label, and occasionally I'd have musicians crash with me if they were in town and not raking in the big bucks. One guy in particular (I'll call him Mr. Trouble) was a solo act from Canadialand and had no qualms about helping himself to the contents of my fridge without regard to replacing anything. So after a few days of Mr. Trouble, my day went like this:

1. Wake up, drink a 12oz ca....what the what?!

I rolled out of bed half asleep, reached in the fridge for my can, and found only air. PANIC. Eyes shot open, heart started racing, and I looked around for my diet coke. Mr. Trouble was snoozing on the couch. My diet coke in his belly. I had always been relatively straight-edge of all potentially addicting substances outside of alcohol, and after a few minutes and regaining my bearings, I realized: diet coke addiction is real, and living in me.

I cold-turkeyed it from that moment on. The first day was a blur of tiredness, headaches, grouchiness and sleeplessness that night. The second day was like the first, only worse. The third day was bad, but it was over the hump and I crashed and slept great that third night. I didn't touch diet coke or anything caffeinated for years after that, slowly working it back into my life in much more reasonable doses.

Since going to culinary school, I gave up diet coke even casually and just drank regular sugary stuff, in smaller quantities. Upon review, even a "small" 12-oz can of the sugared stuff is 130 calories, which adds up quick. There is a theory that diet sodas actually prevent weight loss, but science has pretty much debunked it. Diet soda in itself may not cause weight gain, but behavior around it could (italics mine):

Researchers found that those who drank diet soda were more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a nasty cluster of diseases including diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. The study didn’t define a definite reason for this-and can’t say for sure that one causes the other-but tried to control for other factors, like preexisting health problems, says Dr. Ramachandran Vasan, study author and professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. It’s possible that people may use diet soda as an excuse to eat poorly (the old “two Big Macs and a Diet Coke” approach) or that there may be some sort of biological pathway in diet soda that causes these problems.

That's EXACTLY what I was doing back then to stay fat, ye olde Duo Big Maccas et un Dieta Coka. Now that my duo of Big Macs are tiny lil' cheeseburgers, maybe something will change.

THE COUNT: 2,500
Weights in the morning, felt hungry by bedtime. In the evening, I just cut a huge piece and let the calories fall where they may. Only by coincidence did it hit my budget on the nose. Well, it was actually 238.74 cal, but I round up and down. Because I'm not crazy.

AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, steel cut oatmeal with brown sugar, butter & cinnamon, banana, water, 465 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, Big Mac, fries, diet coke, 920 cal
In honor of today's topic, I had a Big Mac and a diet coke. Believe it or not, this was the first time I've ever eaten a Big Mac. When I was a kid, I'd go to McDonald's with my brother and father - they would always get big Macs, but I wanted to be different. So I would always get a quarter pounder. And that's what I've done ever since, until today. It was only 30 cal more, and quite a disappointment. It was just a tiny double burger with the second layer and too much bread. And that special sauce is not a very special, tasting like ketchup and Thousand Island dressing.

DINNER: 6pm, broiled soil, boiled corn, brown rice, steamed string beans, 7oz diet sprite, 850 cal
Funny how quantity-wise, this was practically twice the amount of food over lunch, but less calories.

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, watermelon, 240 cal

Oh, the Manity!

And finally, madame, a wafer-thin mint!

Weddings have been on my mind recently - this past Friday, me & B quietly celebrated our 83rd anniversary (we got married young), and this coming weekend, we're taking a mini family vacation upstate to attend the wedding of one of my best friends, to whom I am the man-maid of honor. I'm studying the New York Time's wedding section, particularly an article of the rules of giving a toast at a wedding, so I can be sure to violate each and every one in order.

The Weddings section of the NY Times has been referred to as "the Sports Pages for Women", and I won't address the vague (not so vague?) misogyny of that moniker. I usually don't read it, but one article was cross-posted to the Health section online, which I do read. It was about losing weight. It was about dudes losing weight. It was about dudes losing weight so they could be "hot" for their weddings. I'm writing this blog for several reasons, and yes, one of the players in my motives is my manity (man + vanity = manity.) But the main reason? No.

“The groom is really the new bride,” said the restaurateur Penny Glazier, an owner of the event venues Bridgewaters and Twenty-Four Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. “And men want to look as good on their wedding day as women do.”

I'm no member of the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club, but no, Penny, the old bride is still the new bride. This reminds me the the "metrosexual trend" a few years back, where people like Penny tried to convince straight men to spend their grooming & clothing money like some homosexual men. (i.e., a lot more of it.) This is the same thing, where Penny and her ilk want grooms to spend their money more like brides (i.e. a LOT more of it.)

Jason Schramm, a Manhattan radio executive, wore a Spanx undershirt at his wedding earlier this year. That decision did not come without a fair bit of angst. “I worried that it was going to cut off circulation and I would pass out at my wedding and someone would revive me and cut open my shirt and find out I was wearing Spanx and that would be mortifying,” Mr. Schramm said.

- sigh- I'm certainly no paradigm of masculinity, but dude-bro, come on, stop drinking that lite beer. In fairness, a few guys mentioned that they wanted to be healthy for their bride and start off a long term commitment on the right foot (as in, "we'll only get fatter from here!") I guess like those lady mags at the super market with 101 sex tips to drive yo man WILD, a guy like me is just not supposed to read articles like this.

THE COUNT: 2470
Weekend went well. Saturday was chill, squiring around my toddler all morning, a nap in the afternoon, eating enough to feel satisfied, Fell asleep last night before 9pm because on Sunday I woke up at 4:30am to make a train, and I spent the day on the bike with a friend. Eating got a little weird with the hunger and my friend's dietary habits, but still came out of it relatively unscathed.

Woke up this morning sore and tired from yesterday's ride despite 11 hours sleep, but matched with a feeling of clarity and pressure-release. Too sore and beat up to lift weights, pushed that off to tomorrow.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 9:15pm, fruit smoothie, 300 cal


LUNCH: noon, whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce, spinach and turkey meatballs, 910 cal


PM SNACK: 3:45pm, 7oz diet sprite, 0 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, Stouffer's French Bread pizzas, one corn with butter, 7oz diet sprite, 985 cal


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 1 cup chocolate milk, 250 cal

Everyone likes Phun, right?

Five more calories and I could have eaten a Devil Dog.

I rode my bike this morning to Coney Island in the rain. There were plenty of options to eat, particularly tempting was some breakfast hot dogs at Nathan's, but didn't want to squander the calorie credit I was building. I've been a relatively serious recreational/commuter/distance cyclist for about 12 years now, and one thing I've heard repeatedly from various friends is some version of:

"Wow, you ride you bicycle so much, and yet you're still a lard-ass!"

And it's true. I've ridden 100 mile rides weekly, I've gone cross country by bike, I've put a lot of time and energy into it and yet, I've been usually one of the fattest (and relatively slowest) riders on most organized rides I participate in. And it doesn't bother me, I'm not competitive and never really worried about what the next guy over thinks. Particularly if he's head to toe in neon spandex and wearing sunglasses like this:

After winning a stage in the Tour de France, Kenny F'ing Powers strode over to give his sample.

The thing about burning lots of calories quickly is you get ravenous. And my habits tend to be to eat more calories than I burn day-to-day, and when it comes to a 100 mile ride, it becomes even more exaggerated. One could say not only has bike riding propped up my weight, but encouraged me to get fatter.

So when I decided to start counting calories a few weeks ago, I knew I'd have to get a handle on the bike thing. I started with this calculator geared to bike activity, but it didn't feel right. So I bought a new cyclometer with calorie-expenditure measurement, and low and behold, it's measurements were tallying about half the calories of the online calculator. Bigger opportunity to eat, now a bigger opportunity to lose.

Speaking of bikes, one of my favorite blogs is Bikesnob NYC. I've met Mr. Snob and have had the privilege of spending some time with him, so I'm happy to totally rip him off flatter him with a tribute to his end of week quizzes, where he tests the patience deep knowledge of his readership. I shall call it the....

Phriday Phun Quiz

Gaze upon the questions below. Guess right and you will be laughed at by a fat baby. Guess wrong and you will go to jail, with out the bail, because you failed. Ready? Aim! What? Wait a sec! Oh.

It replaced the previous candy, Gone-O-Reyah

Which weight suppressant is the funniest?

1. Ayds
2. Xenical, a.k.a. the poop-yer-pants-pill
3. A punch in the face
4. Yo momma's cooking

Yo Momma in action.

Yo momma is so fat,:

1. she doesn't sit around the house, she sits AROUND the house.
2. she jumped up in the air and got stuck.
3. when she went out in a red dress, everyone yelled, "HEY KOOL-AID!"
4. her belly button has got an echo.

Have a good weekend, catch you next week!

BIKE CREDIT: 650 cal
THE COUNT: 2945 cal
Friday is not a normal day during the summer. B has summer Fridays, Baby Milli has a sitter, Toddler Edie is in day camp, and I get to ride my bike. Due to heavy weather, took a shorter morning ride out to Coney Island, then took out B to DUMBO for lunch to honor our wedding anniversary. The meal was big & heavy, I ordered salad with my burger, she ordered fries with hers, I ate half her fries, we went nuts for the occasion and ordered two slices o' pie, the same pie served at our wedding. In the evening, did yoga with the HVS (the Hungry Vegan Society, who will have her own post next week, if she allows me to talk about her here!) and then a movie. A chocolate thing at the cafe, popcorn in the the theater - no calorie counts, but portion wise, it was more of a meal than the snack it was supposed to be. I felt full after sitting through a 2 hour movie, so the calories must have been up there.

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 7:45am, 2 small whole wheat pancakes, 3 slices of bacon, 450 cal


BIKE SNACK: 11:30am, Gatorade, 130 cal


PM SNACK: 1pm, momma salad, 90 cal


LUNCH: 2:30pm, burger, salad, fries, apple pie, peanut butter pie, water, +/- 1250 cal


EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, chocolate peanutbutter brownie thing, popcorn, diet coke, +/- 1000 cal

A Nettlesome Question

Weed. No, not that weed. I guess some hippies could smoke this?

The more I understand about nutrition, the less I know. Michael Pollan, in Food Rules, proposes this kind of feeling  may be credited to fact that nutrition is a young science:

Nutrition science, which after all only got started less than two hundred years ago, is today where surgery was in the year 1650 -- very promising, and very interesting to watch, but are you ready to let them operate on you?

We're in the dark ages, people are trying to lose weigh by leach-bleeding, evil spirits and vapors.  I've gotten some random advice from friends and colleagues. Someone I respect for reasons other than food or diet suggested I look into a "blood type" diet, which on the face of it, looks like the nutritional equivalent of 1650's medical thinking. The most recent advice is a recommendation for nettle tea.

I drink a pint of home-brewed chilled green tea every morning. The main reason is the caffeine kicks me awake, but in the back of my mind there is all the jibber-jabber about "anti-oxidants" and "flavinoids" and "invisible shiznits" that somehow make green tea da bomb-diggity. It makes me feel good. A small amount of sugar makes it taste much better than coffee too me. So it peaked my interest when I got an email from my good friend T.G. this morning:

I know you got your plate full with lots of info, unintentional food reference, but I have been studying herbs for a few years now and I think perhaps a tonic herbal beverage could really help boost you through. Nettles are an incredible plant, extremely nutritious, full of vitamins A,D, E and K. They build your adrenals, increase energy and help regulate blood sugar. And the infusion tastes lovely. Think about it, and tell the Internet to think about it for you. Haha, google it I mean.

I did some Internet-thinkin' about it, and couldn't really find any medical papers on nettle tea's efficacy, though that won't stop me from trying it -- T.G. lives in France, drinks horse milk, and supplies me with the most wonderful locally grown porcini mushrooms. I've only eaten nettles once, prepared by Bill Telepan, and they were distinctly interesting, but unpleasant.

Should I get some nettle tea? Anyone have an opinion? Is it just hoo-ha? It Does it taste lovely, or has T.G. gotten drunk on the horse milk?

THE COUNT: 2375
Today was a bit difficult, as Baby Mil had the poops and wouldn't nap much, and Toddler Edie was sent home early from day camp due to not feeling well.  It meant B coming home from work and me out and about for lunch with Edie.

So I took Edie out for lunch at a local pizza joint -- it's not a chain, so I had to guess the calorie count. I try to be honest and over estimate the calories. I kept it vegan, no cheese, and kept the dressing minimal, the two biggest sources of calories in meal like this. Sure, the eggplant is breaded and fried, but it still has less calories compared to sausage or meat.

The harder part was getting Edie an ice cream sandwich after the meal -- after her bucking up, we promised her a very rare, special treat. Nothing great was available near by, so I got her an ice cream sandwich on 2 big chocolate chip cookies -- damn thing had 380 calories. As she started in on it, I felt like a junky watching someone shooting up next to me. I wanted it. Would she finish it? What will the calorie count be by the time she gives it to me? She ended up eating about 4/5s of it, and what she did give to me (followed immediately by wiping her hands on my shirt) was a melty, fingered mess which I quickly put in the garbage -- if I stuck that in my mouth, I thought, I'd have to contort into a confession/absolution thing here, and I'm Jewish, so that ain't happenin'.

AM SNACK: 6:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 8:30am, buttered bagel, 8oz diet coke, 500 cal


LUNCH: 1pm, eggplant hero with no cheese, large green salad with half the dressing, water, +/-800 cal


DINNER: 6:30pm, breaded shrimp, 1 1/2 ears of boiled corn with butter, 8oz diet sprite, 850 cal


EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, watermelon, 200 cal

Gubbermint, get in mah belly

The sign does not lie: the hot dog really did taste like a square of cardboard (minus the fiber).

Did you know that a crappy Mr. Softee ice cream cone is 200 calories? Or that a dirty water dog is about 240 calories? Deep nutritional thoughts, I know. I don't care how much the beverage industry bitches about Bloomberg's proposed 16+ oz soda ban (or the tobacco industry bitches about Bloomberg's smoking bans, or the car lobby bitches about Bloomberg's bike lanes.) The fact is I can now go spend an hot afternoon in Central Park, get a casual bite to eat AND know how many calories I just sucked down.

You can argue you all you want how the individual is responsible for their own welfare. Go ahead, do it, I'll wait. Do it. But when industry harnesses our innate, instinctual, evolutionarily once-advantageous lust for sugar, salt and fat for their own profit at the expense of the public health, then it is the public representative's (i.e. big gubbermint) responsibility to push back on our behalf to even the playing field. C'mon, representives! Doit. Doit. Doit.

Oddly enough the most caloric thing on the vendor's menu is not soda or ice cream, but a jumbo cheesy pretzel, coming in at 460. He he, cheesy.

THE COUNT: 2460
Hunger was an issue today. A light lunch left me hungry in the afternoon, but it was expected, and my calorie budget accommodated a substantial afternoon snack o' crap in Central Park. Dinner was quite large in quantity due to a lot of veg and fish and a reasonable amount of brown rice, but leaving me hungry soon after. Again the budget allowed for a substantial snack. I found myself hungry AGAIN by 9, and the hard work began -- not eating, though I desired nothing more than a big scoop of ice cream, a big slice of pizza, a fudge brownie, mmmm. Fatty McFatfat in full fat effect.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 9:45am, smoothie, 400 cal


LUNCH: noon, PB&J on whole wheat, momma salad*, 530 cal


AFTERNOON SNACK: 2:15pm, dirty water dog, Gatorade, 370 cal


AFTERNOON SNACK: 5pm, 8oz diet coke, 0 cal 


DINNER: 7pm, broiled sole with butter, roasted brussel sprouts, chili flavored wild brown rice blend, water, 770 cal


EVENING SNACK: 8pm, almonds and chocolate chips, 310

---

As this is a new blog using terminology from the old blog, I'll take a moment to define...

• Poppa salad: Iceberg lettuce, shredded red cabbage, cubed carrot, cuce, green pepper, scallion, celery, radishes, and red onion. All vegetables were was finely chopped and/or diced. A salad dressing, from a bottle, was a requirement. My dad was born in Vienna, and had no problem with food that my mom would consider "ungapatchka"
• Momma salad: Mom thought the effort of the poppa salad was ridiculous and fussy, and that the flavors got too mixed up. Her mom was from Israel, well, Palestine, before it became Israel, and momma salad is in an Israeli spirit. She would take cucumber, carrot, green pepper, and maybe onion if she was feeling crazy and chop it all into large mouth-sized chunks. A sprinkling of salt was all the dressing it needed, maybe a dribble of olive oil. Maybe a side of hummus to dip in. No pretense, rough n' ready.

Welcome to Kolon Bloe

This is why the Left is losing.

Part of keeping a calorie budget is finding new foods to keep it interesting, ideally foods with high nutrition and low calories. Nothing is better than a big bag of morning hippie-chow from Wholefoods. It's packaged in what a Kellogg's cereal would consider a liner, and it's colors are just what Mama Earthbutt wears around the farm when she's feeling earthy. It actually tastes pretty good, a nice mix of whole grains with only a tinge of mild sweetness. A 60g bowl with 1/2 cup of whole milk is only 300 cal. But.

It's called "Multigrain". That is the name of the damn cereal. Not "Captain Healthy Fun" or "Gimme Nutrio Joy" or "Hippy Crunch Time". Just "Multigrain". I guess the peeps at Nature's Path got really stoned at the marketing meeting, took a nap, and when they woke up, the packaging was being run with the space-holder text.

It's full o' fiber. From now on, this cereal is officially "KOLON BLOE".

THE COUNT: 2435
Ate light today, hunger hit me in the afternoon, tamped down by a baby can of diet coke. Dinner was unexpectedly light -- corn feels heavier than it is, and while a double k-dose of pickles (both kosher and korean) give a big-ass flavah, 1 pickle and 2oz of kimichi only bring about 35 calories to da game.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal


BREAKFAST: 8:45am, kolon bloe and whole milk, 300 cal


AM SNACK: 11am, momma salad, 85 cal


LUNCH: 1pm, jerk chicken patty, vegetable patty, 730 cal
I've been eating more fast food since watching my weight, oddly enough. Why? Because all restos in NYC with more than 15 spots must post calorie counts! Golden Krust is delicious, yo.


PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 8oz diet coke, 0 cal


DINNER: 6pm, 2 links chicken sausage, 2 ears corn, steamed stringbeans, a pickle, kimchi, watermelon, water, 835 cal


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, fritos & chocolate chips, 460 cal

Hello!

Hi! I've been fat since before it was cool. Back when I was a little kid in the 70s, I was husky -- that's 70s lingo for fat-ass. Early in my adult life, I worked on such things as "personality" and "doing interesting things" to overcome the problem that being lardy brings --  a lack of attention from the opposite sex (or for some of you, the same sex, I ain't hatin'.) But I'm 41 now, married, have a bouncy 3 year old and a chillaxing 7 month old, and trying to ease into my midlife crisis gracefully. I'm not so worried about attracting any ladies other than my wifey, but I would like to set up some healthy environmental vibes for the kids and roll into old age without diabetes, rusty joints and no hope of ever being trim again.

I've collected the tools over the last 5 years to lose the chunk, but haven't really used them. I've been keeping a blog for FIVE YEARS, of which this is the last post -- and starting a new blog, of which this is the first post. I have a basic understanding of what is good and what is bad to eat -- I've read all about nutrition, my book shelf is full of titles like Nestle's Food Politics and Pollan's In Defense of Food. I can now cook well for myself and for my family -- I've gone to culinary school, completing certificates in culinary arts and management. I now understand why restaurant food is so stealthily unhealthy -- I spent a few years after c-school working in restaurants, from line cook to manager. 

Self-reflection, check. Basics of nutrition, check. Cooking for myself and my family, check. Connecting with the bigger food environment I'm in, check. And yet I'm still Fatty McFatfat.

My current BMI is 34.4, making me officially obese. According to some data-crunchers, I'm fatter than 88% of the USA and 99% of the world. I need to get from +/- 230 to 196lbs  for my height and age to be simply overweight, 15% of my body mass. I have to lose almost 30% to be 160 lbs, which is "normal weight".

Despite all that, it was a TV show that has inspired me to reset the blog and take a new tact that starts using the tools in my tool box. Weight of a Nation is an HBO documentary that bluntly lays out the obesity problem in the USA -- why it's here, what it's doing to us, and most importantly, what can be done about it. It's even handed and places blame in various places, not JUST the individual. Unfortunately, with the state of politics, economy and our food supply, it falls to the individual on the front line to take the first steps to solve the problem. From the 2nd episode, here are their 5 things to lose weight.

1. Start with small steps: I first tracked calories without restriction for a couple of weeks to see wasssup.
2. Make realistic goals: get to a "over weight" BMI of 196 lbs in 3 years.
3. Seek support: Friends, Romans, countrymen.... Hello, readers! 
4. Keep portions under control: a work in progress, guided by freakishly small recommended portion sizes on labels.
5. Track your caloric intake: I've been doing this for about a month now, and it's a lot of work, a lot of mental noise, a lot of little bits of research, a lot of developing a new sense of what calories feel like when there is no numbers present...

.....and ALWAYS make physical activity a part of your life: I lift weights twice a week, and get a 50-100 mile bike ride in every week, currently. It's a challenge finding the time, but one makes time for what's important, and what keeps them sane.

Weight of the Nation recommends the #1 thing to cut weight: cut out soft drinks, the only foodstuff directly related to obesity. Even a twinkie or potato  chip have SOMETHING nutritional in them. And don't fool yourself like the NYC public school system does: juice is equal to soft drinks -- fruit minus the fiber is just a soft drink.

So welcome to FatBeforeItWasCool.blogspot.com! Thanks for memories, LearningToFeed.com! This blog is, on it's face, a food diary and weight-watching journal. Wary of the slog of calorie-counting, I'm going the Tom Cruise method. According to legend, Tom Cruise has cooks and nutritionists who control every bite that enters his maw.... five days a week. On weekends he's free to feed himself barley water and Scientol-ios and ding dongs. Unlike the previous blog, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are a time chill out.

Three main ways this blog will be different/improved from the last...

Tags: Every post will be tagged to be searchable. Important for me to have easy access to calorie count research and monitoring my progress, as well as being aware of how often I eat what. Important for you, for it'll provide quick answers to whatever shorthand I develop. Because I know you want a bowl of kolon-bloe! 

Graphics: Imma let you finish, but first check this out:

All my favorite blogs have pictures to help tell the story. This nifty chart here tracks my weight over the past 2 years or so, since I started weighing myself. I'll ponder the story being told on here on the 1st of every month, when I weigh in. First of the month: that's the biggie entry where things are thought over, summarized and chewed on.

Humor: Previously, my blogging was a bit belly-button consuming and really not considering others were reading this. Well, I enjoy being funny (y'know, funny ha ha, not funny what's that smell?) and keeping things light will, umm, help keep things light.

If your a regular reader of LearningToFeed.com for some reason, please change your bookmarks to 

fatbeforeitwascool.blogspot.com

Even better, pop your email into the "FOLLOW BY EMAIL" box to get new entries emailed to your inbox and make me feel good by all the people who love me! Who really love me!