Yet again I was watching TV (I need to go back to the reduced TV life I raved about, at least in order to keep my commercial watching sanity) and saw a new 'diet'. Apparently, Taco Bell, of chalupa and mystery meat fame is hoping on the diet bandwagon. Their ads feature a woman named Christine who lost fifty four pounds in two years by choosing items from the chain's fresco menu. According to some media outlets dietitians are actually divided about the value of these types of gimmicks. After doing some reading it doesn't seem to me that their actually torn about the value of the Taco Bell diet as much as they're pleased to see fast food chains getting their act together and offering more choices with a wider range of calorie density. Personally I'm not ready to give Taco Bell a gold star mostly because this Fresco menu has existed for six years and they acted like it was the red headed step child until they realized it could make them more money.
Taco Bell does have a pretty decent website with full menu information and I will give Taco Bell some kudos for having a nutrition guide at all even for things like their volcano nachos which are 1000 calories by themselves. Also, unlike the Special K diet, Taco Bell says nothing about how you're supposed to go about consuming the foods on the diet. Three tacos per day? Two? Two Taco Bell meals from the fresco menu and a sensible dinner?
They do include this at the bottom of the Taco Bell (R) Drive-Thru Diet Menu (R):
"Drive-Thru-Diet® is not a weight-loss program. For a healthier lifestyle, pay attention to total calorie and fat intake and regular exercise. Taco Bell's Fresco Menu can help with calorie reductions of 20 to 100 per item compared to corresponding products on our regular menu. Not a low calorie food. For complete nutritional information please visit TacoBell.com."
Lets assume you eat three items in each meal and stick to only the fresco menu, since there are no specific directions. So assuming you're cutting 20 to 100 calories per item thus 60 to 300 calories per meal meaning 360 to 600 calories per day you would have to have been eating 4200 extra calories per week before you started the taco of death diet. 3500 calories is a weight gain of one pound per week. For a six foot tall, 25 year old male 4200 would mean being overweight by 125 pounds. From this I've just gleaned that eating three items for all three meals on the regular menu means being morbidly obese.
Christine's story does talk more about her calorie intake. She brought her calorie intake down to 1250, which would mean she'd have to be five feet tall, thirty years old and about one hundred pounds to be at a healthy weight if she ate 1250 calories to maintain her weight.
In related information: Taco Bell claims that these diet menu items don't have trans fats, but they do contain fiber and protein (beans and meat, duh) so at least there is that, particularly since you aren't going to get any leafy greens on this diet. So thank goodness you're getting fiber of some kind.
Pros: fiber, nutrition information, cheese free choices. Cons: still greasy, cheap not fresh food, a lack of value per calorie. I suppose this 'diet' could be a mixed bag. If by mixed bag you mean diarrhea and a lack of variety.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Here Comes A Cop Out
I have forty million ideas going on my head and before I verbally (bloggally?) diarrhea them all over you I thought I'd post fun links and gather myself for Monday. Anger at Taco Bell to be seen next week, fyi.
Picture number 26 is fantastic and makes me want to find toast.
I already thought soda was weird and now I'm even sure-r-er.
Farming versus fooding. Or maybe farming working with fooding? Who knows, like the political spectrum its really just a circle, not a line.
I love beets and apparently my new interest in sardines isn't totally nuts.
Today, over gchat, I had an elaborate conversation about a love of poached eggs with an old friend. Try to poach an egg (or fry one until the whites are white and the yolk is wiggly) and put it over anything. If we hadn't given up I'm nearly sure we could have agreed upon hundreds of things to put poached eggs on - tomato salads, toast, toast with tomato sauce, asparagus, asparagus and salmon, oatmeal, grains of almost any variety . . . maybe poached eggs are like bacon and are good with everything?
Picture number 26 is fantastic and makes me want to find toast.
I already thought soda was weird and now I'm even sure-r-er.
Farming versus fooding. Or maybe farming working with fooding? Who knows, like the political spectrum its really just a circle, not a line.
I love beets and apparently my new interest in sardines isn't totally nuts.
Today, over gchat, I had an elaborate conversation about a love of poached eggs with an old friend. Try to poach an egg (or fry one until the whites are white and the yolk is wiggly) and put it over anything. If we hadn't given up I'm nearly sure we could have agreed upon hundreds of things to put poached eggs on - tomato salads, toast, toast with tomato sauce, asparagus, asparagus and salmon, oatmeal, grains of almost any variety . . . maybe poached eggs are like bacon and are good with everything?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Similarities
Tell me you don't love analogies and metaphors and I'll call you a big fat liar. Comparisons are a writer's best friend. By writer I don't mean me on this blog. I mean someone who is in the act of conveying thoughts which is, um, almost everyone. You convey thoughts in writing regularly, probably more often than you realize.
Growing up I was the worst writer ever. No really, my parents could tell you story upon story about how I could not figure out how to write. One day, my father, a lover or writing for the sake of writing, told me that writing is just a person conveying thoughts. Somehow, that clicked in my brain like nothing an English teacher had told me before. Duh!
Instructions for a writer:
1. Think thoughts.
2. Write them down.
3. Make them pretty. (optional)
After my writing epiphany metaphors and I were like this. Okay, so maybe I'm not that good at the whole conveying thing because now I'm trying to type with my fingers crossed. Like this I tell you.
So here is my latest metaphor:
Weight management is like a toddler bed. No, really. For some children it isn't necessary. For some children it is necessary and sticks around for way too long. For some children it might be unnecessary but for some weird reason it exists for a while and disappears. I thought about creating a side by side analysis of how all these things are true but I'll spare you and give you my best examples.
Children it is necessary for.
Toddler bed is to weight management as rolling onto the floor is to an addiction to office chocolates.
Children it is necessary for but sticks around for too long.
Toddler bed is to weight management as new-baby-attention-jealousy is to bad karma/emotional eating from family death/house fires/job loss trends.
Children for whom it exists for some weird reason.
Toddler bed is to weight management as Mom-works-three-jobs-and-doesn't-have-time-to-move-furniture is to Mom-works-three-jobs-and-doesn't-have-time-to-go-to-the-grocery-store.
PS: Similes also rock.
Growing up I was the worst writer ever. No really, my parents could tell you story upon story about how I could not figure out how to write. One day, my father, a lover or writing for the sake of writing, told me that writing is just a person conveying thoughts. Somehow, that clicked in my brain like nothing an English teacher had told me before. Duh!
Instructions for a writer:
1. Think thoughts.
2. Write them down.
3. Make them pretty. (optional)
After my writing epiphany metaphors and I were like this. Okay, so maybe I'm not that good at the whole conveying thing because now I'm trying to type with my fingers crossed. Like this I tell you.
So here is my latest metaphor:
Weight management is like a toddler bed. No, really. For some children it isn't necessary. For some children it is necessary and sticks around for way too long. For some children it might be unnecessary but for some weird reason it exists for a while and disappears. I thought about creating a side by side analysis of how all these things are true but I'll spare you and give you my best examples.
Children it is necessary for.
Toddler bed is to weight management as rolling onto the floor is to an addiction to office chocolates.
Children it is necessary for but sticks around for too long.
Toddler bed is to weight management as new-baby-attention-jealousy is to bad karma/emotional eating from family death/house fires/job loss trends.
Children for whom it exists for some weird reason.
Toddler bed is to weight management as Mom-works-three-jobs-and-doesn't-have-time-to-move-furniture is to Mom-works-three-jobs-and-doesn't-have-time-to-go-to-the-grocery-store.
PS: Similes also rock.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
An Ode to Puff Sections
My love of the puff sections of The Washington Post has been established and this week hasn't failed to deliver (haha, pun intended, I crack myself up). Yesterday's Health and Science section was really more science this week but still provided me with the chance to understand my home county's traffic system. Which, for a nerd, was pretty cool. But today's Food section, hooooo, boy, I think they found the Health part and slapped it on the front page today.
Today's article from Stephanie Witt Sedgewick on making food taste better without adding tons of calories was actually short and valuable (its a puff section if the articles are too long I can't stand to finish them). I even learned something: a pinch of sugar can make your sauce better without salt. I've heard of old Italian ladies putting sugar in their romesco and I am so trying this. I'll also have to agree heartily with Sedgewick on her citrus suggestion. I've been squirting half a lemon over my lunch salad lately and haven't even noticed the lack of oil. A little bit of pepper on top also makes it pretty great. Even Chop't, the salad chain, will squirt just lemon juice on your salad instead of using dressing with oil. I'll admit that I have little to no experience with her suggestion about fruit salsas because they always seem to contain mangoes which have a habit of making me swell up like a balloon.
Not only did today's Food section include Sedgewick's article but it also included a discussion of a study about how habits have, in fact, changed when consumers are presented with calorie information along with a chicken parm recipe that isn't fried. Even famous chefs like Alton Brown are talking about weight loss and how to do it while eating well. I've professed my love for Alton Brown in the past and I think he is dead on about creating a system for yourself as long as it works for you. There is even an adorable part at the beginning where he says he lost fifty pounds on a stead diet of Good Eats. Though, I worry about people trying to fit their life into his rules but at least he did that bit about not being a nutritionist. He talks about how he only has one alcoholic drink per week. Which, if that works for you, great but I couldn't do since I totally live an awesome young 20something lifestyle (or in a dream world).
It seems to me that there have been a wealth of conversations in the media and the public about these topics lately. You have to admit there must be some kind of changing tide when Food Network, keeper of American food porn is in on the conversation something is clearly going on. What's next? Paula Deen eating salad with actual green things?
Today's article from Stephanie Witt Sedgewick on making food taste better without adding tons of calories was actually short and valuable (its a puff section if the articles are too long I can't stand to finish them). I even learned something: a pinch of sugar can make your sauce better without salt. I've heard of old Italian ladies putting sugar in their romesco and I am so trying this. I'll also have to agree heartily with Sedgewick on her citrus suggestion. I've been squirting half a lemon over my lunch salad lately and haven't even noticed the lack of oil. A little bit of pepper on top also makes it pretty great. Even Chop't, the salad chain, will squirt just lemon juice on your salad instead of using dressing with oil. I'll admit that I have little to no experience with her suggestion about fruit salsas because they always seem to contain mangoes which have a habit of making me swell up like a balloon.
Not only did today's Food section include Sedgewick's article but it also included a discussion of a study about how habits have, in fact, changed when consumers are presented with calorie information along with a chicken parm recipe that isn't fried. Even famous chefs like Alton Brown are talking about weight loss and how to do it while eating well. I've professed my love for Alton Brown in the past and I think he is dead on about creating a system for yourself as long as it works for you. There is even an adorable part at the beginning where he says he lost fifty pounds on a stead diet of Good Eats. Though, I worry about people trying to fit their life into his rules but at least he did that bit about not being a nutritionist. He talks about how he only has one alcoholic drink per week. Which, if that works for you, great but I couldn't do since I totally live an awesome young 20something lifestyle (or in a dream world).
It seems to me that there have been a wealth of conversations in the media and the public about these topics lately. You have to admit there must be some kind of changing tide when Food Network, keeper of American food porn is in on the conversation something is clearly going on. What's next? Paula Deen eating salad with actual green things?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
If By Special You Mean Totally Bizzare, Then Yes
Have you ever been watching something for the millionth time, suddenly paid attention and realized what it was really saying? This happened to me the other day when watching TV. The commercial was for Special K cereal and Kellogg's was asking me to participate in The Special K Challenge. I had never really paid much attention to this commercial until I realized they're asking me to eat two bowls of cereal and nothing else before five in the evening.
Um, are you nuts? One bowl makes me hungry and then I want another and its only, like, 8 in the morning! I know this because before I was a more conscious eater I could eat an entire box of Special K Red Berries in one sitting. In fact, after my first trip to Greece I returned, jet lagged, sat on the couch with my roommates, ate an entire box and proceeded to fall asleep at seven p.m. on a Saturday.
Lets investigate this crap my body seemed to love. First, the ingredients list.
We start out with rice which is okay although not terrible nutritionally dense. Then wheat gluten which is just another phrase for carby tastiness and also lacking in nutritional value. Then comes number three, sugar, very tasty and very useless. Defatted wheat germ? I'm not even sure I know. And of course, every five year old's favorite food is number five: high fructose corn syrup. Useless, cheap and total junk. Companies are putting this in everything to get you addicted to eating it and also to save dollars on actual sugar. At least Kellogg's put real sugar in the cereal at all. The rest is all additives that allow the company to claim nutritional value. Vitamin E? Clearly it's good for you!
Now to the actual vitamin and mineral content - the stuff that allows a company to claim their product has nutritional value.
Low calorie? Sure. Low fat? Sure. Full of vitamins? Kind of, since they're added to rice, wheat gluten and defatted wheat germ to become 'nutritional'. You'll notice that the first label mentions folic acid, iron, thiamin, riboflavin and Vitamins A, B, C and E. You'll also notice the added vitamins are the same as those that have 100% of value. This cereal is what they call fortified. It doesn't naturally contain any of the items with the highest percentages.
Assuming you decide to participate in the Special K Challenge (in the amount they suggest with the milk serving they suggest) you'll have eaten 320 calories, one gram of fat and only twelve grams of protein. Thank God you can eat whatever you want for dinner because you'll be starving and falling asleep on the job. Your body needs about 20% of protein per pound of body fat, 30% of calories from fat and we've already discussed calorie needs per person in the past.
Lets say you're 5 foot 5 inch tall woman who weight about 145 pounds (for the sake of the argument, you know, not because that's easy for me) and thus need a minimum of 1400 calories per day, 30ish grams of protein and something like 40ish grams of fat per day. You'll need 1000 calories, 29 grams of protein and 39 grams of fat in your dinner. Hope you don't plan to do anything after you eat all that because you'll either fall asleep from exhaustion or be in the bathroom all night. If you were to try to eat a healthy dinner you'd need to cover your lettuce in about half a cup of olive oil and at least four ounces of lean poultry to get anywhere near those calories, fat and protein. Hope you enjoy oily salad!
Um, are you nuts? One bowl makes me hungry and then I want another and its only, like, 8 in the morning! I know this because before I was a more conscious eater I could eat an entire box of Special K Red Berries in one sitting. In fact, after my first trip to Greece I returned, jet lagged, sat on the couch with my roommates, ate an entire box and proceeded to fall asleep at seven p.m. on a Saturday.
Lets investigate this crap my body seemed to love. First, the ingredients list.
We start out with rice which is okay although not terrible nutritionally dense. Then wheat gluten which is just another phrase for carby tastiness and also lacking in nutritional value. Then comes number three, sugar, very tasty and very useless. Defatted wheat germ? I'm not even sure I know. And of course, every five year old's favorite food is number five: high fructose corn syrup. Useless, cheap and total junk. Companies are putting this in everything to get you addicted to eating it and also to save dollars on actual sugar. At least Kellogg's put real sugar in the cereal at all. The rest is all additives that allow the company to claim nutritional value. Vitamin E? Clearly it's good for you!
Now to the actual vitamin and mineral content - the stuff that allows a company to claim their product has nutritional value.
Low calorie? Sure. Low fat? Sure. Full of vitamins? Kind of, since they're added to rice, wheat gluten and defatted wheat germ to become 'nutritional'. You'll notice that the first label mentions folic acid, iron, thiamin, riboflavin and Vitamins A, B, C and E. You'll also notice the added vitamins are the same as those that have 100% of value. This cereal is what they call fortified. It doesn't naturally contain any of the items with the highest percentages.
Assuming you decide to participate in the Special K Challenge (in the amount they suggest with the milk serving they suggest) you'll have eaten 320 calories, one gram of fat and only twelve grams of protein. Thank God you can eat whatever you want for dinner because you'll be starving and falling asleep on the job. Your body needs about 20% of protein per pound of body fat, 30% of calories from fat and we've already discussed calorie needs per person in the past.
Lets say you're 5 foot 5 inch tall woman who weight about 145 pounds (for the sake of the argument, you know, not because that's easy for me) and thus need a minimum of 1400 calories per day, 30ish grams of protein and something like 40ish grams of fat per day. You'll need 1000 calories, 29 grams of protein and 39 grams of fat in your dinner. Hope you don't plan to do anything after you eat all that because you'll either fall asleep from exhaustion or be in the bathroom all night. If you were to try to eat a healthy dinner you'd need to cover your lettuce in about half a cup of olive oil and at least four ounces of lean poultry to get anywhere near those calories, fat and protein. Hope you enjoy oily salad!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Way Under Par
An excerpt from a conversation heard round the world:
X: My New Year's resolution is to lose weight.
Y: My New Year's resolution is to exercise more.
X: Great, we'll go running together and eat salad together. I'm so excited.
Y: My hangover is raging from New Year's Eve. Want to go get pancakes and some hair of the dog?
X: Oh, God, yes please.
And, scene.
This conversation happens a million times over around the world at the start of each year. If a health resolution isn't broken in a few days its probably broken in hours. There are two reasons for this.
One, New Year's is in the winter. In the winter it is freaking freezing. This past weekend was easily the coldest I've experienced in years. I even wore pants to church on Sunday and I always wear a skirt. Always. Its a Greek lady thing, I can't tell you a good reason, I just do. So you know its really cold when I wear pants to church. Anyway, since its so damn cold your eating is handicapped from the start. It is far easier to get your hands on hot meaty stew and also your body wants to eat hot meaty stew because you're freaking freezing.
Two, no tasty fruit is readily available. Sure you could eat a box of clementines and a few mealy apples but that sounds gross and boring for three freaking months. Even the farmer's market is looking lame right now. The honey crisp apple bin (if you have never had one of these you have not yet lived) looked like the bin of trash produce from your generic grocery store yesterday. It was sad looking to say the least.
By resolving to be healthier in the middle of your area's version of arctic tundra you're combining cold unhappy body with frozen farmland and ending up with cold unhappy and hungry you. See? Stupid.
This is me giving out free passes to be a little lame in the health department during the time of year when your risk of hypothermia is higher.
I said a little lame. Not totally lame. I find myself with a very limited amount of will power. I can't resist a good cookie when its been offered three times. I'm going to give in on the third time if it looks tasty enough. The thing is though, you can totally make resolutions to be better. You just need to not be a moron about it. (I was once/often am a moron about this.) If you try to make a million changes the first day of the year and cram them all into your life at the same time on a frozen day in January when there is no fruit to be had you're trapping yourself in a mealy apple filled hell of your own making.
Make resolutions? Sure. Start small and build up? Yes. Handicap yourself so you fail? No, thanks.
X: My New Year's resolution is to lose weight.
Y: My New Year's resolution is to exercise more.
X: Great, we'll go running together and eat salad together. I'm so excited.
Y: My hangover is raging from New Year's Eve. Want to go get pancakes and some hair of the dog?
X: Oh, God, yes please.
And, scene.
This conversation happens a million times over around the world at the start of each year. If a health resolution isn't broken in a few days its probably broken in hours. There are two reasons for this.
One, New Year's is in the winter. In the winter it is freaking freezing. This past weekend was easily the coldest I've experienced in years. I even wore pants to church on Sunday and I always wear a skirt. Always. Its a Greek lady thing, I can't tell you a good reason, I just do. So you know its really cold when I wear pants to church. Anyway, since its so damn cold your eating is handicapped from the start. It is far easier to get your hands on hot meaty stew and also your body wants to eat hot meaty stew because you're freaking freezing.
Two, no tasty fruit is readily available. Sure you could eat a box of clementines and a few mealy apples but that sounds gross and boring for three freaking months. Even the farmer's market is looking lame right now. The honey crisp apple bin (if you have never had one of these you have not yet lived) looked like the bin of trash produce from your generic grocery store yesterday. It was sad looking to say the least.
By resolving to be healthier in the middle of your area's version of arctic tundra you're combining cold unhappy body with frozen farmland and ending up with cold unhappy and hungry you. See? Stupid.
This is me giving out free passes to be a little lame in the health department during the time of year when your risk of hypothermia is higher.
I said a little lame. Not totally lame. I find myself with a very limited amount of will power. I can't resist a good cookie when its been offered three times. I'm going to give in on the third time if it looks tasty enough. The thing is though, you can totally make resolutions to be better. You just need to not be a moron about it. (I was once/often am a moron about this.) If you try to make a million changes the first day of the year and cram them all into your life at the same time on a frozen day in January when there is no fruit to be had you're trapping yourself in a mealy apple filled hell of your own making.
Make resolutions? Sure. Start small and build up? Yes. Handicap yourself so you fail? No, thanks.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Oh, hi.
Um, hello? Please feel free to wrap me on the wrists. I haven't been in a secure location or trapped under something heavy or even doing anything that seemed important enough not to write but I clearly haven't written either. Sorry about that.
I have been kind of busy. There was Christmas prep, Christmas shopping, Christmas revelry and I'm sure there were other things. Hmmm. Oh right, eating and working out. I pretty much alternated between holiday business (eating) and subbing classes at the gym (working off the eating). So what I'm trying to say is, I have no excuse for not blogging except that I've been occupying my hands with stuffing my face and then occupying my feet with moving around a lot.
I will say this for my sorry, blog-lazy butt: I have been really good with journaling over this holiday season. I made a conscience effort this year to remind myself that over stuffing myself wasn't going to make Christmas more enjoyable or make the holidays less stressful. And let me tell you, reminding yourself to take care of yourself everyday when you have ten gifts to buy, two casseroles to make, forty cookies to bake and lots of hugs and smiles to express is like reminding yourself to fly to the moon before going to work. Life stress means that, for me, organization goes out the window. Dear God, I am a creature of habit and doing habitual things like journaling when the day is full of aberrations is quite a challenge.
This is not to say that I was perfect at journaling, nor was I great with my calorie consumption. In fact, I still overate a lot. But if anyone asks, I did my best damn it.
I have been kind of busy. There was Christmas prep, Christmas shopping, Christmas revelry and I'm sure there were other things. Hmmm. Oh right, eating and working out. I pretty much alternated between holiday business (eating) and subbing classes at the gym (working off the eating). So what I'm trying to say is, I have no excuse for not blogging except that I've been occupying my hands with stuffing my face and then occupying my feet with moving around a lot.
I will say this for my sorry, blog-lazy butt: I have been really good with journaling over this holiday season. I made a conscience effort this year to remind myself that over stuffing myself wasn't going to make Christmas more enjoyable or make the holidays less stressful. And let me tell you, reminding yourself to take care of yourself everyday when you have ten gifts to buy, two casseroles to make, forty cookies to bake and lots of hugs and smiles to express is like reminding yourself to fly to the moon before going to work. Life stress means that, for me, organization goes out the window. Dear God, I am a creature of habit and doing habitual things like journaling when the day is full of aberrations is quite a challenge.
This is not to say that I was perfect at journaling, nor was I great with my calorie consumption. In fact, I still overate a lot. But if anyone asks, I did my best damn it.
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