My New Un-Diet

Recently, I swore off carbs. It lasted two days. Then, I decided to make over my attitude instead of my diet.

The short version of what I think about low-carb diets is that they are not fun. Many of my favorite foods are carb-heavy: homemade macaroni and cheese, fresh cookies hot from the oven, Thai pan-fried noodles. Although I love fresh fruits and veggies, and we eat piles of them in the summer, I find it difficult to get my head (let alone my mouth) around the idea of seasonal stir-fry without any rice at all.

Husband and I, in the clueless energy of our youth, once tried the Atkins diet. I was such a serious grouch for the initial two weeks that I am surprised he could stand to live with me. Don't know the rules of the Atkins diet? Basically, the first two weeks, you try to eat NO CARBOHYDRATES AT ALL. This means, in addition to the obvious no rice, no pasta, no bread, no potatoes, you also get no sugar/desserts, no fruit, no milk, no vegetables high on the glycemic index (corn, sweet potatoes, carrots, squashes). Basically, you eat a pound of bacon for breakfast, a giant hamburger with lettuce on it for lunch (no bun, no ketchup, slather on the mayonnaise if you like, but only if it is NOT the fat-free kind, since they always add sugar to that), and half a grilled chicken with a few green beans for dinner. If you like your meat with a side of meat and some melted cheese on top, Atkins is the diet for you. If you prefer not to drag yourself through your day as if you are wearing concrete shoes, and you don't enjoy headaches and mood swings towards Plant Cranky, however, I cannot recommend this diet.

Older and more sensible, we turned to the South Beach diet a few years ago. This, I think, is actually a healthy diet. You do a few weeks with no bread/rice/pasta/potato/sugar, but you eat any fruit/veg you want, dairy, etc., and then you start working the starches back into your diet in small doses. The book explaining the diet has six weeks worth of recipes in it, so you don't end up grasping exhaustedly for more bacon for breakfast because you can't think of anything else to eat that doesn't involve starch.

Even while South Beach is more satisfying to the palate, and less likely to make me crabby and sluggish, it still means that there are things I just shouldn't eat. And while I'm all onboard with being healthy and eating well, I don't really like being told I can't have certain things. Also, I try extremely hard to get the kids to eat broadly and eat the same things we do, so the thought that I would be purposefully making two different dinners each night because of my restrictions was more than a little galling. How exactly do I convince them that "this is what's for dinner, honey, so this is what you need to eat," if I'm not eating it?

So I began thinking hard not just about what I eat but about why. Now, you may think that why we eat is obvious, but I actually think that why is a lot more complicated than most people realize. On the most basic level, we eat to stay alive because food fuels our bodies. But it doesn't only fuel our bodies. Food is also a pleasure, an emotional crutch, a means of control and indulgence, a social occasion, a way to unwind, a memory. For many people, food is intimately tied to all the best and worst, highs and lows of our lives. It is the thing that helps us cope when we are blue, the centerpiece of celebrations, the reason we feel guilty, the excuse to bring together some friends, the bane of our existence, the marker of our cultural heritage.

All of which explains why I hate diets. Being told I can't eat something I want is, for me, tantamount to telling me that I am not allowed to be happy today. I don't want to go to an impromptu after-dinner bonfire at my neighbors' house and drink water while everyone else is sipping sangria. I can't smile contentedly and join the witty banter if everyone else is eating s'mores and my hands are empty.

So I've made myself a new diet, what I call an un-diet. The rules are simple: I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want with just a few caveats.

First, I have to ask myself if I'm actually hungry. If the answer is yes, then the next question is whether the food I'm about to eat is really the best choice to fix that problem. This simple pause before I open my mouth and start noshing on something has already helped me remember to reach for the healthier snacks: an apple with a bit of peanut butter, raw carrots with hummus, a bowl of strawberries, a yogurt.

If I'm not actually hungry, but I find myself standing in front of the pantry, then I try to figure out what the real problem is. I'm bored? I'm feeling sleepy? I have been sedentary for too long? Often, if I've been working at my desk for a few hours, I go for something to eat not because I need food but because I need a change of pace. So now, instead of eating something, I make myself a cup of hot tea, or I walk to the mailbox, or I call a friend for a few minutes. Something to recharge my mind is all I really need.

The general principle of eating only when I'm hungry is keeping me from nibbling up the last four bites of mac-n-cheese on the kids' plates, from eating out of boredom, and from snacking late at night while I'm working. All of these are easy ways to cut unnecessary calories from my day without actually feeling deprived.

At mealtimes, I have rebalanced my plate. At least half of the dish has to be covered in veggies. I serve myself half of what I normally would have chosen of whatever starch is in the offering, and a reasonable serving of protein. This way, I don't feel like I'm not eating the things I love. And if I don't love them, I don't eat them.

We aren't a big desserts family, and we don't tend to keep chips, sodas, and other junk foods on hand anyway, so that's not a big problem here. But sometimes you just gotta' have a cookie, you know? So I do. When I'm eating socially, I will have desserts or nachos, margaritas or b-b-q, basically whatever's in the offering. I just try to be conscious of my principles (am I hungry? have I balanced my eating, so that there are lots of veggies here? do I really need seconds of dessert? am I paying attention to what I am eating?). The other night at the neighbors', I spent a long time perfectly toasting a marshmallow so that it was all-over golden brown, puffed and melty. I put it on top of half a graham cracker, and then topped it with a large hunk of good chocolate. I didn't bother with the final cracker lid, since I've never really liked that much graham craker on a s'more anyway, and I'd rather eat more chocolate. The whole thing was sticky, melty, and delicious. I felt satisfied with just one.

I think this is pretty much the same as the much-touted "French diet" that people have been talking about. The French eat whatever they want and seem to stay very slim. Soft buttery croissants are hardly low in calories. But they walk a lot, and they eat small portion sizes, and they make food fun and social, always eating meals slowly and savoring the goodness of the flavor and the company.

So that's the last piece of the puzzle for me: enjoying what I eat. I try to sit and eat not too quickly. I try not to nag at the children to sit up properly (I usually fail spectacularly at this part) and instead ask them what their favorite parts of their day were. I try to have a conversation, really taste what I am eating, and pay attention to the food itself. I find that if I eat more slowly and more mindfully, I eat less and enjoy it more.

For someone who always had a fast metabolism growing up, who could start exercising after a winter of sluggishness and be in shape a mere three weeks later, the hardest lesson has been that I simply don't need THAT much food anymore. I love to eat. I love the flavors and textures, the combinations on the plate, the social occasion, the comfort of making--on a cold winter's day--some recipe that was my grandmother's. For me, the issue of proportion is the biggest hurdle to get over. But I've decided that this is the challenge I will face, rather than condemning myself to weeks of pretending I'm a rabbit or that I'm in training for a meat-eating contest. I would rather eat a little less of everything, eat only when I'm hungry or truly in the midst of a social gathering, and be mindful of what I'm enjoying than come up with a list of off-limits foods.

Because, honestly, a life without chocolate is not a life well-lived.