My
Diet Diary
Or, "Blood-sugar nosedives and cheese-eating Chihuahuas"
By
James Whittall
MenEssentials President
Published October 2005
It was my wife's idea. I don't usually dedicate more than a few passing thoughts to my weight. As far as I'm concerned, God's in His Heaven and all's well with the world if I can still reach my pink parts with a wash cloth. Marlene, on the other hand, has that thing about her waistline that drives most middle-aged women to lunacy.
Every faddish diet, every half-baked get-thin-quick scheme – she's tried them all. So when she announced her plan to inflict the Curves diet on herself, and me by extension, I thought it prudent this time to support her in her misery. Anything but suffer the wrath of a woman without chocolate.
So now I'm dieting. For the first time in my life. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Day 1
Marlene and I have already announced our plans to friends and family.
There’s no turning back.
We start our day with a necessary but oddly unsatisfying symbolic gesture: purging our home of potato chips, bread, cookies, soft drinks, pasta – anything high in carbs and sugar but low in protein. Our sons are in a panic. They watch in helpless desperation as we shovel their lifeblood into the trash and replace it with fresh vegetables, cans of V8, fruit, nuts, and those funny meal replacement shakes that look so appealing on the package, until you actually drink one.
The first week is a steep dive – no more than 1200 calories per day, with dietary supplements – to jumpstart the body's metabolism. Cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast. Tasty meal replacement shake for mid-morning snack. Salad for lunch. Ham and cheese as a mid-afternoon nosh. Steamed spinach and parmesan stir-fry for dinner. Celery sticks as our evening repast.
Yummy. By 11:30 AM, I’m ready to eat my shoe.
Hold steady, James. You gave up smoking. By comparison, how bad can this be? Every day is one small success. Every day is one small success.
Day 2
Marlene and I arrive home from work, she in tears and me on the verge
of a nervous breakdown. Sometime during the day, our blood sugar levels
derailed like runaway freight trains.
No one said anything to us about withdrawal. Hands shaking, we frantically scour her Curves book for advice. Aside from the inspirational platitudes-of-the-day – dare to soar, failure is a fact when you give up, your only limits are self-imposed – there's not much information on blood-sugar nosedives. Guess we're on our own.
"I want chocolate," Marlene wails. She snatches a tissue from the downstairs bathroom and throws herself on the living room couch to sob quietly. Our boys stick their heads up from the basement stairwell. "It's nothing, guys," I assure them. "Just a little nerves. We'll be fine."
"Yeah, right," Dylan mumbles. At least, that's what I think he says. He's 17 and now communicates only in grunts.
Day 3
We're both back on track after a very nasty evening bummed out in front
of the tube with nary a potato chip or chocolate-covered raisin in sight.
The worst seems to be over. In fact, I'm remarkably ... alert. Marlene too. We both wax poetic on the virtues of organic produce, how much better we feel now that we've cleansed our bodies of starch, sugar and preservatives, and how we should have started ourselves on this diet sooner.
Until, of course, I read today's menu.
Ham and cheese. Again? That's three days running! Are these Curves people sadists? Do they not know a man cannot live by ham and cheese alone?
Of course, they don't. This diet's for chicks. So while Marlene fills her lunch bag with swine and sour milk solids, I make a very lovely Julienne salad with hard-boiled egg, lean Turkey strips, fresh bacon bits (we're allowed to eat bacon), and vegetable medley. That's fair. I'm a growing boy.
Marlene eyes my lunch with disapproval. I show her my little container of unflavored yogurt and cantaloupe, as proof of my ongoing commitment. "Just making a few adjustments," I tell her. "I want to still like ham when we're done."
"Fair enough," she says, albeit warily. I think she thinks I'm starting to cave.
Maybe she's right. I'm so deep in denial, it's hard to know for certain. Besides, what are a few bacon bits? One pinch, no more than a tablespoon, of yummy, crispy bacon? Tasty, smoky, savory bacon. Mmmm.
Somewhere, far off in the distance, I hear Marlene laugh. I snap out of my reverie to discover I've drooled on my shirt.
Day 4
Friends invite us over for cards. It's our first social evening since
we started our diets, and there's no telling how we might react when they
pull out the theater-style popcorn dripping with simulated butter.
Marlene's not so certain this is a good idea. "Don't worry, babe," I assure her. "I bought something to keep us going." And hold out a container of red pepper dip. "Low in calories, low in carbs, all the lip-smacking goodness of red pepper pabulum. What's not to love?"
She's not buying it. Well, tough. I need to play poker.
Fortunately for us, our hosts are very sympathetic to our cause, so they refrain from fatty foods for the evening.
"We're so proud of you guys," Gail (not her real name) says over her drink. "It takes a lot of guts, what you're doing. And you'll feel so much better after! What are your goals?"
I blink stupidly. "Goals?"
Marlene already knows what she's talking about. "I want to lose 25 pounds or two dress sizes, whatever comes first."
Gail (not her real name) looks at me like I'm some kind of unsophisticated diet novice, which I am. I search for an answer, anything, but only one idea pops into my head.
"I just wanna look good naked."
The two women glance at each other. "Men," they say simultaneously. Like that's supposed to offer a special insight only people without penises share. Gail (not her real name) elbows her husband and says, "You guys are all the same."
Mike (his real name, because he doesn’t give a damn) looks up, startled, from his cards.
"What the hell did I do?"
Day 5
6:15 AM. The alarm wrenches me from a vivid dream, in which a Chihuahua
is licking cottage cheese off my chest. Clearly, I've started to lose
my mind.
To be sure, I consult an online dream dictionary. It offers no specifics on Chihuahuas and cottage cheese, though dreams of dogs are supposed to symbolize intuition, loyalty, protection and fidelity while dreams of cheese symbolize gains and profits.
That makes sense.
So I call my sister-in-law, who's a clinical psychologist and therefore most qualified to offer advice.
"Yup, that's pretty weird," she says.
"What do you think it means?" I ask.
"How should I know? I work with rats."
So that's that. I spend the remainder of my day munching on turkey-breast lettuce wraps and pondering the meaning of my cheese-eating Chihuahua.
Mid-chew, I realize I'm starting to actually like this stuff.
Day 6
Last full day of our steep dive, and then we can ramp up the calories
and carbs. I can't wait. If I eat one more steamed anything, I may go
postal.
Day 7
Weigh-in! Marlene climbs tentatively aboard the bathroom scale, and a
pall of unbridled disappointment casts immediately across her face.
"One pound?" she shrieks. "I lost one friggin' pound? All that ... that ... lettuce ... and all I lose is one, stinking, stupid little pound?"
Our sons are starting to back slowly out of the room.
"It's okay," I soothe. "Just keep at it. You'll lose more weight next week. Everyone's different. Guy shave faster metabolisms. Metaboli. Whatever."
I don't actually know what I'm talking about, but Marlene's clearly about to go ballistic. I step onto the scale, glance quickly at the results, and hop off.
"See? I lost only a pound or so, too. No biggie. We'll have this thing licked by next week!"
She eyes me with suspicion. "How much weight did you really lose?"
I give her my patented I'm-shocked-you-would-even-suggest-such-a-thing glare and she relents.
In fact, I've lost six pounds. For my sake, she'll never know.
Women Diet, Men Lose Weight
As of this writing, Marlene and I have a little more than three weeks
left to go on the Curves diet, and it's actually working. The recipes
are much more humane when you get past the steep dive, and I realize now
that I can live very comfortably without starches, sugars, and complex
carbohydrates. In fact, Marlene's down several points on her body fat
index and I'm still lying to her about how much weight I've actually shed.
Chances are, I'll lose more weight and keep it off longer. During a recent BBC interview, nutritionist Dr. Jacquie Lavin reported that men are more successful than women when it comes to shedding pounds. In Dr. Lavin’s 12-week study on gender and dieting, 91 percent of her male subjects lost five percent of their body weight, while 53 percent of the women who took part lost the same amount. Translated into actual tonnage, that's an average 23.5 pounds for men versus 15 for women. Men rule!
Unfortunately for us, our diet will be winding down around the time Canadian Thanksgiving hits.
I already have my eatin' pants ironed. With luck, and a little willpower, I won't need them.
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