Shine (5 page)

Ask yourself, “Is it worth all that?”

If it’s not worth it, you don’t need that extra scoop, friend. And it’s not.

What about Eating in a Restaurant with Friends: How Can You Control Portions?

This year, I had to host the international polo championships in Florida, and I invited my girlfriend Jaci along for the ride. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, and this is the way we ordered and ate. You can go out with your significant other, your girlfriend, or another couple and do it the same way. Everyone eats well and no one feels deprived. Jaci and I ordered one appetizer and one entrée for two of us. We knew we’d split everything. The appetizer was angel hair pasta with basil and chopped tomatoes in a light garlic sauce. The entrée was a veal chop. Both the pasta and the chop, as we guessed, were pretty substantial. In the old days, I would have ordered both the pasta and the veal chop (aren’t you supposed to order an appetizer and an entrée? The restaurants hope you do) and scarfed down both by myself. But Jaci and I split the pasta and the chop. The meal was delicious and exactly what we wanted; when we finished, we felt satisfied and full but not tired.

Sometimes, when I go out with Al or friends, no one wants what I want, so there’s no sharing. This is what I do: I order what I really want, and when it arrives, I cut it in half on my plate and send the rest back with the waiter to pack up right away. I eat slowly and appreciatively—I’ve learned to savor my food more when eating in this new way. I’m newly mindful of the flavor and texture of the food. Usually, half is enough when I’m not unmindfully gobbling down what’s been placed in front of me. If I still feel hungry (and I can tell the difference now between being hungry and wanting to finish everything on my plate just
because someone put it there), I’ll wait for a few moments just to allow myself time to feel satiated and see if I’m really still hungry. I ask myself, am I hungry enough to open that take-out, have it re-heated, and brought back out to me? You know what? I have never opened the take-out to get another portion. Actually, I’ve gotten to the place where once I have it removed from the plate altogether, I’m not even tempted. Once you get used to eating controlled portions, anything else feels really excessive.

Number one truth:
You have to get over the “children are starving elsewhere in the world” mentality.

Number two truth:
When it comes to hunger, most of us are driven by what we see, not by how we feel. If too much food is placed in front of us, we’ll come to perceive that it’s a normal amount. If we get ourselves used to portion control, the smaller amount will seem far more normal than the whole, gigantic portion.

Number three truth:
Controlled portions = discipline and true long-term weight loss; healthy living requires discipline, not compromise.

Star Tips

• If you’re eating in a restaurant, ask for a doggie bag and silver foil right up front; when your food arrives, wrap half the amount and put it into the doggie bag right away. You can always take some out if you still feel hungry after eating what’s on your plate—but I bet you won’t. Now you have a nice lunch for the next day!
  
• Avoid buffets. It’s almost impossible to practice portion control in an all-you-can-eat situation.
  
• For a while, until you’re used to eating less, prepare portion-controlled meals in advance and then freeze them. You won’t be tempted to go for that second helping if there is no second helping.
  
• Marinate foods in spices for flavor; foods that taste richly delicious (in flavor, not fat) make you feel more satisfied than bland offerings.
  
• Serve yourself (and your partner or guests) on individual plates, rather than in family-style, I’m-begging-you-to-take-seconds bowls.
  
• Never eat out of a bag or carton. Not even Chinese food.
  
• Walk on by the door of a restaurant that promises supersize or jumbo portions. That restaurant doesn’t love you.
  

• Eat slowly. It takes about twenty minutes for your stomach to tell your brain you’re full.
  
• Sit down at a table while eating; pay attention to your food, tasting every bite. It’s too easy to gorge mindlessly on French fries when you’re lying in bed watching a Lifetime Original Movie.
  

I want to tell you something. Suppose, one day, you pig out on a double- or triple-size portion. Suppose you fall madly in love with a hot fudge sundae. No
biggie. When it’s over, it’s over—put a lid on the guilt feelings. You didn’t, as a friend of mine says, ruin your life or sell your baby on the black market. Get over it. Start back with your portion control the very next day. It’s also helpful to try to figure out what contributed to your temporary lapse: Did you eat out of the carton? Did you have a really bad day? Were you stranded without food in the Sahara Desert for a week? What
everrr…
it’s not the end of opting for portion control tomorrow.

Nutritional Balance

Mount Sinai Hospital’s nutrition expert Rebecca Blake says that besides portion control and exercise, shooting for a nutritional balance in any weight-control plan is vital. If I didn’t know that when I was obese, I sure know it now.

“You’ve got to choose foods from all the food groups to achieve a healthy nutritional balance,” says Rebecca. “That’s another reason why steak, cashew, ice cream, cabbage soup, and low- or high-carb diets not only don’t work but are not healthy. We need
all
the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are found in dairy, protein, vegetable, fruit, and even fat food groups. Leave even one of these groups out, and the resulting food imbalance will render you nutritionally deprived and feeling unwell or fatigued. And for dating purposes, something even worse: people who follow low-carb diets, for example, complain of crankiness and something we call rancid fruit breath—not a terrific asset for meeting the love of your life. Does this mean you can’t be a vegetarian and be healthy? Of course not. But, the vegetarian has to substitute other sources of protein such as tofu and soy products for the protein she’s not getting from meat, chicken, or fish.”

Balance. It’s a good word. Avoid rancid fruit breath. Those are bad words.

Eat Only What You Love and Adore

I’m not a vegetarian, but I sure follow Rebecca’s advice about substitution because there are many foods I don’t like and I never eat them, no matter how
great they’re supposed to be for you. I hate and despise beets—don’t put them anywhere on my plate. I hate cottage cheese—
ickh.
Anything that’s squishy like Jell-O or raw oysters going down my mouth messes me up, uh-uh, I can’t do it. I realize that I have to aim for nutritional balance, so I’ll find substitutions that have nutrients similar to those in the icky stuff I despise. I love vegetables (except beets of course)—raw and cooked—and raw veggies make a great, nutritionally rich snack.

Ultimately, what is going to work for you in the weight-loss game is feeling satisfied. Modest portions of a variety of wonderful foods are the way to go. But you have to come to the point where you trust yourself enough to know that your body will tell you when it feels full. This takes some time to trust that body. In the old days, four years ago, I’d order a double Whopper with cheese and fries, eat the whole thing, feel stuffed, and think that was the normal way to feel full.

Snack Time

Everyone needs a handful of something to eat when reading or when watching some dumb television program. It’s a good idea to prepare snacks in advance, so when you plop down on the couch to watch
Desperate Housewives
or
Girlfriends,
you’ll reach for the good snack—not the Chunky Bar.

Some general thoughts on snacks:

• If you’re eating something from a cellophane bag you bought in the supermarket, already I know you’re in trouble. Chips? Pretzels? Just say no.
  
• A little protein mixed with a snack containing fiber makes you feel fuller. Try a half teaspoon of peanut butter on a piece of fruit, or top a whole wheat cracker with hummus. Mmmm.
  
• Peeled baby carrots sold ready to eat in a bag? A doll of a snack!
  

Try these other snacks: remember—take only one portion, and snack slowly.

• Trail Mix
  

Mix, take a handful, and make it last. Put the rest away.

• Dried fruit:
  Raisins, for example, are healthy (low in sodium, fat-free), but the calories add up fast (about one calorie per raisin).
  
• Fresh fruit:
  I love plums. Love bananas. Grapes have a high water content, so they fill you up with a lot fewer calories than, say, raisins. Cut whatever you choose into small pieces and eat them languorously.
  
• Fresh veggies:
  Nothing like carrot, pepper, or celery sticks for snacking. Good and good for you.
  
• Soy chips:
  I hate to say it because soy is not my favorite thing in the whole world, but these tasty snacks have only about two-thirds the calories of potato chips and no saturated fat—and soy is good for you. But like anything else, they add up. Remember portion control: separate the bag of chips you buy into three or four little plastic bags and put three away for the next week.
  
• Edamame:
  Soybeans. This
  is
  my favorite snack (they don’t taste like soy) and can be bought frozen, then defrosted in the microwave.
  
• Veggie-based soup:
  I love this when it’s homemade. I freeze it in individual portions of one cup.
  

Some Final Thoughts on Food, My Mom, Weight Loss, Health, and Guilt

One of my favorite medical men is Dr. Andrew Weil, whose book
The Healthy Kitchen
(coauthored with Rosie Daley) is a mainstay in my kitchen. “Food is not
the enemy,” he declares in the introduction to the book, “and the dining table is not a minefield. I am unwilling to eat food that is boring, artless, and devoid of pleasure even if it’s somebody else’s idea of healthful.”

To that I say, amen. I love good food; trouble is, I loved it too much and I’d never heard of portion control.

My mom, who also never heard of portion control, never equated weight with looks, which was good and also terrible. I grew up in a home where fried foods seemed as healthy and natural as salads—it’s that southern African-American thing. We sure were not overly health conscious. I mean, we would have salads and traditional southern vegetables—collard greens, string beans, and cabbage—but the veggies always had some sort of pork product mixed in, and the salads were heavy in delicious dressings. The good part was that I developed a taste that’s more partial to real food than sweets and desserts, comforting food that makes you feel safe and good. My mom was always full figured, and she gained even more weight as I grew older. But the man I loved more than breathing, my stepfather, thought that she was sexy and beautiful and perfect just as she was. So, they were my role models. The good part of that is I watched how his eyes always followed her (and still do) when she crosses a room, and I grew up thinking that I was beautiful also, full-figured as I was. I had an image of what a man I loved thought was beautiful—and it wasn’t skinny.

The bad part is that I didn’t take care of my health as I should have, and my full figure turned into obesity. Today, I’m back to full figured. I’m never going to be skinny—it’s just not my body and I will always have curves—but I will be healthy. I will never, ever again be unhealthy, tired, and weak because I haven’t respected my body.

Here’s a challenge for you: I ask that you do yourself a favor and stop buying into the fantasy version of the perfect body. The only perfect body is one that’s
healthy. Most of the fabulous pictures you see of those fabulous stars and models are airbrushed anyway—and I should know because mine are definitely airbrushed. Hey, I’m proud of my newly toned arms, but please, girl, they don’t look that good!

If and when I have a daughter, I sure plan to teach her that the goal is healthy and happy—not skinny, not fat, not thin, not thick—physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. Period.

Full Figured vs. Fat

I hate confessions, but here we go:

There’s a difference between being full figured and being fat. Once I was full figured (as I am now—just with less weight), but there came a time when I became fat. Out of shape, sloppy, morbidly obese, and not Star. I lost myself when I gained all that weight, and I went from the confident, happy, full-figured girl I loved being to the insecure, unhappy, self-conscious fat girl I didn’t want to be. How do you know when you’ve crossed the line?