Tag sugar

Dieting on the Road

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Dieting on the Road

Tandoori Platter

It’s not as challenging to eat “well” on the road as we dieters like to imagine. I’m not talking about going the chicken salad route (hold the chicken skin, the croutons, the dressing and the dried fruit & nut pieces) … you can do that if you want but that’s not how I diet!

Yes, you have to have some dialogue with the server. And yes, they’ll probably think you’re a bit of a pain. But better that than blow the diet. Again!

On the road last week, I was led towards an Indian restaurant this particular evening. And that was just fine by me. I pretty much love all food but if you forced me to pick just one national cuisine, I might have to go with Indian. As it happened, I was on a low-carb regimen that particular day. Oh boy!

I love rice, naan, samosa & pakora but those were not going to be allowed today. Yes, there were salad options. And yes, there were vegetarian dishes aplenty. But I was drawn to the Tandoori Platter. Right away, the word platter promises a gut-busting feast of goodies. And it was. Beef, chicken, lamb, shrimp and who knows what else. There were some token veggies in there too, just to assuage any little fear I might entertain of it being an unhealthy choice. One of the key reasons for this choice was that it didn’t come with a sauce, Tandoori dishes are dry spiced. And I refused to ask about their spice recipe … just in case there were any bad ingredients in there that would have forced me to order that chicken salad! I do love those sauces, by the way, but there’s always some bad stuff hiding in them. And today was to be as sugar & starch-free as any reasonable road warrior could make it.

The bottom line was that it was delicious. I was stuffed. And I was sufficiently fortified to resisted all the starchy temptations offered by my dining companions!

But did it work?

I don’t know!

I’ll have to wait for the official end-of-month weigh-in on October 1st to see how it all plays out. Though I might have been grateful that I didn’t have my scale with me during my travels!

 

Let’s Get Fat!

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Let’s Get Fat!
Doughnuts

Today, if you ask me if I have a sweet tooth, I will say no. In fact, I have always totally denied any leaning towards sweet things.

“Give me a rib steak over dessert any day!”, I would assert.

My history might suggest otherwise!

Doughnuts (or donuts!) are really cheap in my part of the country. If you buy them in a quantity of 6 or more, they are then considered food and are, therefore, tax free. The rough logic is that anything considered a snack is taxable, while anything considered food is not. A couple of doughnuts are a snack. A dozen are considered food for the family. We typically buy them by the dozen. Now it does make sense that a family pack of doughnuts would be tax free. But it’s not a family pack in our house, or at least not for me … they are nothing but a snack. All 12 of them!

As part of my “Let’s Get Fat” program over the years, the occasional box of doughnuts might find its way into our house. Everyone else would have one. I’d put three on a plate and grab a large glass of cold milk. The cold milk is essential if there are any chocolate doughnuts in play. It didn’t matter if I’d had a big breakfast, and lunch, and dinner that day … I always had room for three doughnuts after dinner. And then three more! After which I’d pray everyone would go to bed so I could have whatever might be left in the box. Without them watching me walk to the cupboard and fridge again. Well, in my defense … at least I felt guilty about it!

I consider myself pretty strong-willed. Capable of mustering the discipline and will-power necessary to accomplish most things I set out to do. And most folk who know me would probably agree with that. But not when it comes to doughnuts. Nor cookies. Nor apple pie. Along with a whole host of other products that have an addictive recipe of sugar, refined starch and fat. That modern blend is the perfect storm for getting fat. And I’m just one more outcome that proves the proposition.

It would be pretty delusional of me to imagine that I might ever lose weight by pandering to my addictions, wouldn’t it!?!

It might be even more delusional to think that I could maintain any weight loss achievement by going back there again.

Good thing I really enjoy my rib steak! 🙂

 

Sweet & Sour

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Sweet & Sour

Yellow Ontario Plums

Have you ever eaten greengages? They’re a green plum that I remember from the other side of the pond. They’re smaller than the typical plum. With a sourness to them that has my mouth watering just thinking about them. And that reminds of a rhubarb tart. Oh boy, is that the most delicious tart of all or what! Picking wild sloes from between the thorny branches on the way to school … the shredded arms were worth the sensation of extreme mouth-puckering that came along with stuffing a fistful of these little sour bombs in your face.

If all that has you cringing, you might be North American!

Fortunately, I developed my taste for sour foods on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s not that we don’t have sour foods here, we just don’t seem to like them very much. The reason a tart is called a tart is … well … because it’s tart! Here we call them “pies” to avoid any sense of confusion! It’s difficult to find a rhubarb tart round my way. The much sweeter strawberry rhubarb pie is far more common. Or we could, more accurately, call it the Sugar-Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Most of my Canadian friends would run screaming from the rhubarb tarts my mother used to make. But I loved them.

Most folk here don’t know what a “cooking apple” is. The famed Bramley cooking apple from the British Isles is secretly spoken about, amongst groups of expats hiding in the corners of dark & dingy pubs, in Canada. Here, we think the Granny Smith is a sour apple! LOL

We do like to sweeten things up in North America. I don’t think I’d ever had a sweet pickle before coming over. In Europe, they were as rare as real rhubarb tarts are here. Quebec, thanks to the French influence, offered both. For better or worse, modern food science & marketing techniques are used globally now. You can find ultra-sweet, sugar-laden products everywhere. The sour stuff doesn’t seem to have taken off in quite the same way. And that’s a pity.

If you’re not already a fan of sour, you should start working on it. It is an acquired taste & you’ll only acquire it with practice. Without ever going on a diet, you can improve your chances of not having to by making choices that don’t include oodles of sugar. While having a palate for sour doesn’t mean you won’t like sweet, at least you’ll have some other options. Unfortunately, developing a sweet tooth is not nearly so difficult!

The yellow fruits that appeared on our counter last night weren’t, as I’d hoped, ripe greengages. They were Ontario plums. They were a little tart but they didn’t deliver that “duck’s arse on a cold lake” kind of pucker that I was hoping for. But they were certainly better for me than the other choices I might have made after dinner. Though I probably shouldn’t have had a dozen of them, should I!

The displacement theory of dieting shouldn’t be ignored. Replacing a sweet processed dessert with a whole food is probably always a good move. Unfortunately, it’s probably not enough. The good news is that we can train ourselves off sugar too. It may take a a week or two of enduring our morning java without sugar before we get around to deciding we like it.

While we’re still complaining about the summer heat … try an iced coffee without the sugar syrup for a while & see how it goes.