Foodie On A Diet
 

Hey all,

I'm a long time lurker of this forum and finally decided to take the plunge and post. After taking a break from dieting for a few years (maintained my weight via intuitive eating and lots of walks. I don't drive, either) I've decided to go back into this world after some nagging health problems and the realization that my mother is pre-diabetic. Obesity runs in my family and I need all the help I can get.

For the past few years, I have also been caught up in the 'fat acceptance' rhetoric of Kate Harding and her ilk. While I still believe in Health at every Size, following the fat acceptance crew's mantras blindly anymore is not for me, namely because I am not healthy and I know adopting new habits and changing my weight, even slightly can improve my health.

I'm single, in my late 20s, travel frequently, and love good food. I love fine dining, discovering new hole-in-the-walls and trying everything the culinary world has to offer. That will be the most challenging thing for me. I am not a sweets person, but i love savory, rich food, so adjusting to less food and smaller portions has been a challenge (i've been at this three weeks now, longer than most of my other 'diets!')

Anyway, that's it. Looking forward to getting to know everyone here. Looks like a supportive group!

Hi and welcome to 3FC.

Good luck with your goals.

Hugs
Michelle

:welcome: to 3FC!
Hugs and support on your continued weight loss journey :flow1:
Judy

So glad you took the plunge. We all need to be able to support each other. In July I about gave up. I have many friends that just accept their bodies and are 250 lbs. I thought I should try to accept myself that way too. The weight loss is so hard. BUT do to some health issues my doctor really stepped up and is taking the time to help me and my personal trainer. I feel very blessed about it right now and really want to see results! Good luck to you!

Stacy

Welcome and good for you for realizing that small changes can improve your health :)

I'm not sure if you're following any specific plan yet, but I know a lot of people here at 3FC have become foodies and food snobs after following plans. I'm personally a calorie counter, so when I can eat any food as long as it stays within my calorie limit, and this has definitely influenced the quality of foods that I eat. When I'm cooking a meal, I'm not going to spend calories on low quality bland ingredients. I'll modify a recipe to use the most flavorful interesting ingredients to get the biggest bang for my caloric buck, so to speak. As a result, I've discovered new foods, created my own recipes, and become a bit snobbier about foods.

So you can still indulge in your foodie hobby. Just make it a point to seek out and enjoy the yummiest foods that are on plan. There are plenty of blogs out there that are devoted to healthy and low calorie (or low carb, fat, whatever) foods.

I'm a foodie too and I was (am) overweight for that reason. I love food too much and I'm not just talking about delicious McDonald's fries. It was the wine and the desserts and the rich meals at great restaurants that source locally.

It's been hard to adapt, but I've also had to face health issues and that's what keeps me going. You'll still be able to enjoy, you just may not be able to do it all the time.

I had to think about my eating as differently, more for sustenance and less for pleasure. And to remind myself if I really, really, really, wanted it, I could have it - in moderation.

I'm still working on it and learning I can still get some pleasure out of small portions!

Best wishes on your weight loss journey from a fellow foodie

Sue

Thanks everyone for the great replies!

Rana, i have the same issue. I love experiencing new food and wine. It's a hobby and a huge source of pleasure for me. But you're right, it's time to scale back and see the steak frites and the truffle mac and cheese and the bottles of Pinot as special treats.. not a common thing.

mkendrick -- have a similar philosophy! would rather use good ingredients and spend the calories in good, real food versus fake food. huge difference, and easier to sustain, i think.

I am a total foodie also and have adapted just fine, as I am sure you will too :)

As you noted, it is more about ordering smart and eating small. I also dont care about being "wasteful". I will order a full multi-course tasting menu and eat 2 bites of each course if I want...or order 4 apps as my entire meal and pick at all 4.

And I take a different approach to eating than most. I dont eat lots and lots of low cal food, I actually train myself to eat smaller volumes of food with more compact nutrition. This helps my tummy feel full on small portions.

xty -- you're in san francisco! so much good food there....

that's a really interesting way of looking at it: smaller volumes of better food versus a ton of low-cal fat free food. very interesting, will have to look into that too!

I think one of the reasons I've been able to stick with weight loss "this time," is because I'm not stifling my inner-foodie anymore. I just focus all that foodie energy into different foods.

We were grocery shopping the other day, and I was excited to see individual servings of fancy cheesecake in the grocery store's deli. I put it in the cart, expecting it to be my "splurge" for the weekend, but I put it back when I saw bags of honey crisp apples on sale for only $2 per pound (They're averaging between $5 to $6 a pound).

I was a lot more excited about those apples than the cheesecake, so it was a happy trade. The cheesecake looked good, but there wasn't anything special about that particular cheesecake. It definitely didn't strike me as the best possible cheesecake - but Honey Crisp apples are my idea of the perfect apple. I love all crisp, firm, juicy, sweet/sour apple varieties, but the Honey Crisp is by far my favorite. When they first came out in our area a few years ago, they sold for $6 per pound, and nearly as high at the farmers' markets, and I thought "who'd be nutty enough to pay $6 per pound for an apple - that's $2 to $3 per apple!".

Now that I've fallen in love with them, I know that I'd buy them, even if they were $10 a pound (I would buy a lot fewer of them, but I wouldn't go without at least a HC apple or two every season).

At $2 a pound, I bought 5 lbs. I followed someone's suggestion here and tried them with a very light sprinkle of salt (sea salt, because I think it tastes "cleaner" than iodized salt). The flavor almost reminded me of caramel apple.

I've always thought of "diet food" as boring, even though I knew it didn't have to be that way. I thought that to make it really interesting I would have to spend a lot of money and time in the grocery store and in the kitchen. Turns out that isn't true at all. It's just as fun to be a foodie when you're picking out healthy, low-cal foods.

Just a few days ago I made a variation on the raisin broccoli salad that I first tried at a family picnic (broccoli, mayonaise, sugar, white vinegar, red onion, raisins, sunflower seeds and some people add bacon). I make a lot of variations of this salad choosing different vegetables, different dried fruits, different nuts (cauliflower, vidalia onion, champagne vinegar, cashews or macadamia nuts, and craisins was my favorite combo until now). I usually don't add the bacon, because I don't think it adds anything.

Anyway I my lighter version:

broccoli
diced red onion and green onion
diced bell pepper
Hellman's Canola oil mayonaise (45 calories per tablespoon, the olive oil mayo is also good and it has 50 calories)
Splenda instead of sugar
blueberry pomegranate vinegar instead of white vinegar
craisins and dried blueberries instead of raisins (I used about half what the recipe calls for)

I was going to put in some chopped nuts or sunflower seeds, but I didn't have any. I think I'll add jicama for crunch next time.


MMMMMM yummy!

Hi damngina and others.
I'm also new here, but your first post so perfectly described me that I'm just going to "tag on" :lol: . I LOVE traveling and food. It just goes together for me. In the last 3 years I have lived in the US, Germany, Mexico, India and the Czech Republic - and there is amazing food everywhere you go! I think I've put off the weight issue b/c I always had in my head that I won't be able to have "fun" anymore if I can't dig into the cheese course and the bottle of Montrachet. I do realize that's nonsense as it's really about not overdoing it and making smarter choices, but still...it was my excuse for not tackling it.

Anyway, here I am. If you need another fellow foodie that can appreciate the challenge of enjoying high quality food and a good bottle of wine while trying to lose weight, especially while traveling - I'm your girl! :D

kaplods -- thanks for the recipe! and i agree, sea salt is SO much superior than regular salt. kosher salt is also great.

cincimini - awesome to have another epicurean! and i feel the same way as you do: that if i can't have fried chicken in the south or a full english in london then..well, i'm not "experiencing" it. i have a trip planned to vegas in a month and i'm already hemming and hawing about what i will eat. my plan is to have one spectacular meal with no rules (robuchon) and then TRY to moderate the rest. we will see ;)

Yes, this is exactly it.

Hello from a fellow Foodie, on the other side of the weight loss part of this journey.

For me, I had to become passionate (PASSIONATE) about really, really high quality, delicious, lower-calorie foods. I spend more time on food than almost anyone I know. I spend each Sunday morning among stacks of produce and coolers of local, organic meats at the Farmer's Market. I eat seasonally, and I eat foods that are (even to those who aren't trying to eat lower calorie) delicious.

But I also had to realize that weight loss wasn't about foregoing truly "special" meal experiences. I went to Greece and Paris last year and experienced the foods of those places with gusto, from an amazing meal at the Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower, the most amazing cream-filled pastry I've ever eaten, and a meal consisting only of meat, cheese, heavily oiled vegetables, and wine in Paris, to a street food Gyro and breakfasts of full fat Greek yogurt with fruit and honey in Greece. It was an exceptional trip, on many levels, but I was very active, so I didn't gain much if anything....but even if I had experienced a blip upward, I would have been OK with it. That trip was SPECIAL, I was in places where I adore the food, and the food was worth it, you know? And I refuse to give that up.

I am mildly obsessed with cupcakes, having spent the last 3-4 years compiling a list of cupcakeries to try before I die. If I am in the vicinity of a list cupcakery that I haven't tried, I go. And I sample various treats and I ENJOY it. I likewise refuse to give THAT up. My life is not my life without having a really well-crafted cupcake every once in a while.

I had the honor of attending a pre-opening dinner for Chef Morimoto's new restaurant in Napa (my FIL was the architect, and I shamelessly begged for him to get me in). It was amazing, it was more calories than I normally eat, and it was worth it because the event was decidedly special, and being my foodie self, I was going to drink in every moment (and try every wine they were pouring...it's Napa!)

But 95% or more of the days you spend in your eating life aren't those SPECIAL events. They're ordinary days. And while I still put love and joy into my plates onto those days, I don't give myself free license to eat heavy, rich foods. Instead, I get passionate about lighter foods. I am known in my family for my ability to make vegetables taste heavenly, because I developed ways to make them taste exceptional every day.

I still use all my cooking creativity to make really exceptional food (last night's dinner was a locally farmed pork chop covered in curry, ginger, and cumin, with roasted butternut squash and potatoes and a side of cabbage sauteed with apple and onion). But I watch the calories on that food. That enables me to eat with gusto at the really, genuinely SPECIAL events, because I use a careful hand when cooking the rest of the time.

I just wanted to say I understand being food passionate, and needing to experience those amazing, once-in-a-lifetime meals. It CAN work in an otherwise moderate food lifestyle, guilt-free and weight-gain free. You just have to recognize what is truly special, recognize what is not, and keep yourself moderate for the non-special moments so you can savor every second of the special ones.

I 100% get what you're saying. A couple years ago I was invited to an 11-course tasting menu at the best restaurant in Stockholm. I would have kicked myself if I had stuck to the salad :D.

damngina, I looked up that restaurant in Las Vegas. I definitely recommend NOT counting calories that night. It sounds absolutely delicious! :eek: You should be able to do okay the rest of the time, even though I know how hard it is to resist the temptation. And if all else fails and I want something special without doing too much damage, I get a bunch of good sashimi and a couple pieces of nigiri along with a seaweed salad. Never fails to get me in a good mood :love: