A:
The answer is Yes and No. Dried fruits are nutritionally sound (though inferior to fresh fruits) but they are very calorie dense. If you compare an equal amount of apples and dates—you get about five and a half times the number of calories in the dates. Because they are so high in natural sugars and so high in calories, dried fruits can be really diet defeating, which is why they’re F.L.A.B.B. foods. As to fruit juice, what’s happened there is that most of the fruit’s nutrients and all of the fiber have been left in the flesh of the fruit and all you’re getting is the sweet, high-calorie, natural liquid sugar. A glass of orange juice is about five oranges worth of juice—and is less satisfying and far less nutritional than just eating one whole orange. Stick with the whole fruit and your waistline will thank you!
Q:
Why is white flour a F.L.A.B.B. food?
A:
Refined white flour is basically wheat with everything healthy about it stripped away. It not only lacks nutrients, but the refinement process removes all fiber from the grain, which prompts white flour to behave like pure sugar when it enters the body. It’s metabolized too quickly, causing blood glucose disturbances and sugar cravings. Eat too many of these foods and you will undoubtedly have mood swings and may get depressed, angry, and irritable. It’s not good for your health, not good for your weight loss, not good. Stick to whole grains, whole wheat, or wheat alternatives like spelt.
Q:
Why is sugar a F.L.A.B.B. food?
A:
Like white flour, refined sugar is without nutritional value. In addition to adding untold empty calories to your diet, it rushes into your bloodstream and wreaks havoc with your blood sugar levels and makes losing weight much harder than it needs to be. It also causes mood swings and has been connected with many diseases—from Alzheimer’s to cancer. Whenever possible, Just Say No.
Q:
Why can’t I have diet soda?? It’s calorie-free!
A:
Because we are trying to break you of the habit of drinking any soda at all. It’s either full of sugar or full of chemicals or full of both. Calorie-free or not, it messes with your body’s ability to function at maximum capacity.
Q:
Give up diet soda?! Are you crazy? I can cut down, but I need the caffeine to get through my day. Can I at least drink one and use it as my 100 calories of whatever?
A:
No. But you can have a little coffee or some green tea or black tea, iced or hot, for a little caffeine blast. For a touch of sweet, you can stir in a teaspoon of honey or maple syrup.
Q:
Is it okay to skip the fat in my meal? Won’t that help me lose weight quicker?
A:
No!! Healthy fats are an absolutely essential nutrient for weight loss. A new study shows that dieters who decreased calories while concentrating on healthy fats and carbohydrates had higher metabolisms after ten weeks of dieting and reported less hunger than dieters taking in the same number of calories who ate only low-fat foods.
Q:
What’s the best way to measure the amount of butter I use on my toast? My thumb nail?
A:
Trick question, right? You trickster, you! Butter is a F.L.A.B.B. food. Try drizzling your toast with a teaspoon of olive oil and sprinkling a little salt on top. YUM!
Q:
I’m a teacher and I’m finding it really hard to eat five meals a day. I can’t really be eating while I’m teaching.
A:
Believe me, after a few days of eating this way, you’ll be really hungry every few hours and eager to find ways to get your sustenance (even if it means giving your students a “pop quiz” so you can turn your back to them and eat your protein bar or drink your homemade smoothie while they cheat!).
Q:
Do I have to have a protein, carb, and fat in EVERY meal? Like, I can’t just have salad?
A:
You can just have salad. Just throw some egg whites or tuna on top, sprinkle some chopped apples on it, and use a teaspoon of an olive oil–based dressing and you’ve got a perfect meal! There are so many salads you can make—and combining the foods is really easy after a few days. Do your best to follow the meal plan as closely as you can—because I’m telling you, it works!
* * *
Play by the Rules
* * *
Eat five small meals a day. Use your palm, fist, and thumb to determine portion size.
Eat a lean protein, a healthy carb, and a healthy fat with each meal.
Eat F.Y.T. foods. Don’t eat F.L.A.B.B. foods.
You may eat as many leafy green vegetables with each meal as you desire. This is in addition to your carb/fruit portion (not in place of it.)
Read ingredients lists carefully.
Eat “whole” foods—whole grains, fruits, vegetables—as much as possible.
Eat organic foods as often as possible.
Before eating, soak your fruits and veggies in lemon juice and water to eliminate pesticides and impurities.
Between meals, you may snack on celery and cucumbers without penalty. Eating anything else between meals incurs a snacking penalty.
If you find that you are frequently hungry, add more vegetables to your meals.
The more time you put in planning ahead and preparing your meals, the easier your day will be.
When dining out, be very aware of how the foods you’re ordering are prepared—even if it means annoying the waiter.
When you annoy the waiter, be as polite as possible and then tip well.
Chapter 9
EXERCISE
(Or, I Never Even Knew I Had a Muscle There.)
I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It’s been about two months since I’ve worked out. And I just don’t have the time. Which is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And watch TV. And get a bone density test. And try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
—Ellen DeGeneres
* * *
The Rule: You must exercise (any kind of exercise that makes your breathing speed up) for a minimum of 20 minutes a day, six days a week, to earn 20 points a day.
You may do a seventh day of exercise but you will not earn extra points.
* * *
Exercise. Not my thing. Really, really, super not my thing. I ran track my freshman year of high school because my sister Kaili was a track star and I used to like to copy everything she did. (Also, there was a boy I liked on the track team. Chris McSomething. Tall. Irish. Cuuuute.) But when the coach would make us run two miles around the neighborhood every day after school as a “warm up,” I would run the quarter-mile to the local Dunkin’ Donuts, eat an Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cruller, and hang out until I saw some kids heading back to school. Then I would fall in line with them and run the quarter-mile back, panting vigorously and often cramping from running with fresh donut in my stomach. True story. (Also, when we were kids Kaili was a gymnastics star so I followed her to gymnastics class. After four years of lessons I still couldn’t do a cartwheel. And can’t to this day.)
After watching The Secret I was convinced I could increase my metabolism with mantras such as “Pizza digests perfectly and quickly in my body.” Didn’t work. Exercise works better. And the game made me willing to exercise.
—Tammy, 39
Not much has changed since then. In my office today, I have a giant, squishy, green reclining chair with this fabulous fabric that, no matter what you spill on it, always stays clean. I love this chair. I live in this chair. One of the writers I work with recently suggested that I should have a picture of feet on my business card, because that’s all he ever sees of me—my feet on the end of my reclining chair as he walks past my office. The nature of my job is that I often have to write twenty, thirty, even forty pages in a day, up against tight deadlines. What this means is that on a writing day, which is most days, I sit in my chair for somewhere between eight and twelve hours, only e
ver getting up to race to the bathroom and back. Every few hours, my assistant brings me food, which I eat with one hand while typing with the other.
There is no time, no option for any kind of exercise. Believe me, I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining. If exercise were my thing, I might complain. But as I mentioned above: really, really, super not my thing. I am truly happy in my fluffy green chair with the adrenaline of looming deadlines surging through my blood. If I could get away with never exercising and stay healthy and reasonably fit? I would not have a problem with that. Happy, happy, happy to sit still.
The thing is: I can’t get away with never exercising and stay healthy and reasonably fit. I know this because, as I’ve mentioned, when I moved to Hollywood to be a TV writer, I weighed about 155 pounds, and by the time I got pregnant eight years later, I weighed 185 pounds—after losing five pounds at a juice spa.
Nobody hated exercise more than I did, and when I read that I had to exercise for 20 minutes a day to win, I thought I’d just read that O.J. was coming over. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, so I strapped on the running shoes and went, and it changed my life immensely! I didn’t feel like I needed to sleep more when I woke up in the morning. I had incredible energy throughout the day. My once squishy tummy became more toned and the euphoric feeling I got after only 20 minutes of moving my body was enough to keep me exercising daily, even after the game ended!
—Star, 22
Before I became a working writer I had time in my day and I would often go for a hike with a friend who was walking her dog, or to the gym because another friend was teaching a spinning class. I would also move around a lot just in daily activity—walking to a restaurant for lunch, playing Frisbee on the beach with my boyfriend, boogie boarding in the ocean with friends, or Rollerblading with my sister around Central Park. (I was also a waitress for years and I swear on any given shift you walk five miles between the kitchen and the bar and your tables.) Exercise wasn’t my thing even then, but I naturally kept my weight in a healthy range because I was often in motion.
And then I got my first job in television.
The end.
By the time Az came into my life I had myself convinced that it was humanly impossible to do my job and get any kind of exercise ever. He said, What about working out in the morning before work? I said, That’s time I could be with my daughter. He said, How about over your lunch hour? I said, I write through my lunch hour. He said, What about at night? I said, I’m tired at night. He said, Krista, I’m asking you for 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes of putting your body in motion. You can go for a fast walk after dinner. You can do sit-ups and push-ups on the floor beside your baby while she sleeps. You can jump around your living room or you can jump on to your dusty home-exercise equipment. Any time of day or night. For 20 minutes. You really can’t find 20 minutes?
Even I couldn’t pretend that I couldn’t find 20 minutes. When I started to pay attention, I noticed that even on my busiest deadline days, I would stop writing to check e-mails or read People online. The human brain cannot focus on one thing for twelve hours in a row. You get about two hours before your brain starts to wander, your writing gets bad, and you need a reboot. My habitual reboot was e-mailing and checking up on celebrity gossip. Az was asking me to get up out of my fluffy green chair and exercise instead. Still, I’m a rebel and I resist change, so I didn’t exercise every day until Az proposed the game. There are big points—20 POINTS A DAY—attached to those 20 minutes of exercise. A POINT PER MINUTE!
Exercise is not my thing. Winning is. So I started to move my body six days a week for 20 minutes each day. I hate exercising in the morning so I didn’t often do it despite Az’s insistence that it has more benefit. (It jump-starts your metabolism, prompting you to burn more calories throughout the day.) Most often, I would get my exercise at night. Az taught me a hard, 20-minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout that I would do two or three days a week. (You’ll see how to do it later in this chapter.) On the other days, I would dance around the house with my baby or do calisthenics on the floor of her nursery while she lobbed balls at my head, or, after she’d go to sleep, I would jump on the stationary bike. Some days I would take a fast walk around my neighborhood at lunch (because I discovered that I write more and better when there’s a little extra blood flowing to my brain). Some days I would put on music and lock the door and jump around my office. (My current favorite workout song? “Hey! Hey! You! You! I don’t like your girlfriend…” Avril Lavigne. I’m not proud.)
I should mention that there were and are very real added benefits to forcing myself to do the 20 minutes no matter how tired or cranky I am. One is that I’m always less tired and less cranky when I’m done. The other is that I actually sometimes don’t stop at 20 minutes ’cause it feels so good to move. The third is that I’m way less fat.
Come on. Join me in Way Less Fat Land. It’s nice here! And easier to breathe!
* * *
• • • A Tip from Az • • •
When Krista and I had the conversation she’s recounted, she was weighing 205 pounds—the “before” picture you’ve seen in this book. She was more than 50 pounds overweight.
At that weight, 20 minutes of any exercise can make a big difference. At that weight, your body has to work so hard and burn so many calories just to carry the extra weight around that when you combine exercise with a sensible diet it’s actually easier to lose weight.
If you are closer to your goal weight—within twenty pounds—you will have to do a more vigorous exercise routine if you want to meet your weekly weight-loss goal. Still, you can keep it to 20 minutes a day and see results! All the new research is saying that results are less about how long you exercise than how hard you exercise.
The very best aerobic workout you can get is 20 minutes of high-intensity interval training (HIIT). There are a bunch of ways to do it, and I’ve outlined several of them on the following pages.
* * *
* * *
A word from Grey’s Anatomy’ s own overachieving doctor/writer/producer, Dr. Zoanne Clack
As an emergency medicine physician, I wish I could drill three things into the minds of every person everywhere:
1. Wear your damn seatbelt!
2. Don’t abuse your children!
3. Exercise more!
I’m not sure that’s the right order. I might do away with child abuse first—but you get the idea. And you’ll notice that all three things on this list are DOABLE. You don’t hear me yelling at you not to develop Parkinson’s or not to get cystic fibrosis. I am yelling about things each and every one of us has the power to change. And if you’re looking at number 2 and you’re saying, “Well, no way in hell would I abuse my child,” then look at number 3 and consider the fact that by eating crappy foods and refusing to move your body, you are abusing somebody’s child: your parents’ child. (God’s child? Both?)
On any given night, the ER is filled with men and women coming in with the agony of a heart gone bad. Young men and young women. Men and women with children and spouses and parents who love them. Men and women who have NO BUSINESS having heart attacks, but here they are anyway, having heart attacks in my ER. Heart attacks, by the way, that likely would not have happened if the patient didn’t have (a) high blood pressure, (b) high cholesterol, or (c) type II diabetes.
Exercise can help you prevent or manage or undo all of those abc’s I listed. It also slows down aging, decreases your risk of Alzheimer’s, reduces your need for prescription drugs, and can even help to make your heart and lungs stronger. Exercise will help you become more active, more energized, and more vital; you’ll sleep better, you’ll look better, you’ll feel better. It is the ONE thing you can do to completely change your life and health!
And listen, I know I sound a little preachy, but I’m not talking to you as some skinny chick who’s never had a weight issue of her own. I’m speaking to you as a woman who at the age of forty said Enough! and los
t more than fifty pounds. And I’m speaking to you as a person who, when I hit a weight-loss plateau, played Krista and Az’s game to push through it. I’m healthier and more fit at forty than I’ve ever been in my life. Why? Because (a) I wanted to look great (and now I do), (b) I was tired of hiding behind the fat and making excuses for why my clothes didn’t fit and my social life was in the toilet, and (c) I didn’t want to end up a heart attack in someone else’s ER. (Again, not necessarily in that order.)
—Zoanne Clack, MD, MPH, FACEP
* * *
Motivation
Okay, so hopefully the doctor has convinced you that you should be exercising. But knowing you should do it and doing it are two different things. For me, the added motivation, besides winning points and obliterating my opponents, is about music.
MUSIC is truly the difference for me between enjoying a workout and hating every minute of it. It is also the difference between working out at half speed (if the music is too slow) and full throttle (if the music is, say, REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”). Seriously, I can be on the stationary bike and think I am riding as hard and fast as I can. And then a much faster song starts to play, and suddenly I am riding much harder and much faster. So my suggestion is that you get a bunch of fast songs that you love. And in case you’re not sure where to start, here’s a little assist from my favorite spinning instructor.
The Game On! Diet Page 11