Fat City: Losing Weight by Cooking and Eating Low Fat

FAT CITY: LOSING WEIGHT PAINLESSLY
BY CUTTING FAT

Several years ago, while Food Editor at the San Jose Mercury News, I went on a successful low fat diet and wrote about it in the newspaper. Following are the lessons I learned. They can help you too.

Increase Your Fat IQ| Write It Down | Put Your Kitchen On A Diet Shopping | Go Meatless | Cooking | Retrain Your Taste Buds | Alcohol Substitute, Substitute | Exercise | Guess What's Coming to Dinner?
The Best Dining Out Defense: A Good Offense
Low Fat Breakfast Keeps Temptation At Bay
Beat The Clock With A Week's Worth Of Fast Low-Fat Meal Ideas

I'm A New Man - Or At Least A Leaner One:
The Secrets Of My Success

Recipes:
Pesto Pizza, Greek Chicken, Curried Lentils with Basmati Rice, Raspberry Crčme Brulče, Tofu Smoothie, French Toast, Summer Salad, Cucumber & Corn Salsa

There were a few chuckles and a lot of quizzical looks when I announced that I was going on a low-fat diet to lose four or five pounds. "You can’t go on a diet," was the universal response. "You’re already thin."

OK, it may not seem like a lot, but you see, there’s this seersucker suit in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear for over a year because the pants are too tight. I’ve refused to have the waistline taken out because I just knew I was going to lose those four or five pounds and that inch and a half on my midsection. But it never happened. And gradually, that seersucker suit has found companions to play with.

So I decided to do something drastic. I’m changing the way I eat for one full month. I’m going to reduce the fat in my diet so that my total fat consumption is between 20 and 25 percent of my total calories.

The average American has a diet that is 37 to 40 percent fat, according to the American Dietetic Association. Current recommendations say we should have a diet that is less than 30 percent fat. And many health and nutrition experts suggest a diet that is less than 25 percent fat, especially for people at high risk for cancer or heart disease.

So where do I start? First, I enlisted the aid of a registered dietician. She suggested I keep a diary of what I ate in the two weeks preceding my diet. When analyzed, it showed that my diet was a whopping 42 percent fat.

The second thing I did was to test my cholesterol levels and my percentage of body fat. Here are the vital statistics: cholesterol, 254; HDL component (the "good" cholesterol), 64: LDL component (the "bad" cholesterol), 175; percentage of body fat, 17.8.

(My cholesterol level was high but my HDL component put me into the below-average risk category. Average body fat for a man my age is between 18 and 24 percent.)

I also weighted 196 pounds instead of the 194 pounds the scale at my gym had been registering. My waistline was 37 1/2 inches. (My weight is within the ideal range for people my height – about 6 feet 3 1/2 inches.)

I’m hoping that by following a sensible, low-fat diet I can take off at least five pounds, an inch from my waist, a good chunk form my overall cholesterol and maybe a percentage point of body fat.

My diet is a diet with a small "d." That is, I’m not slavishly following some guru who tells me exactly what to eat and when. Instead, I’m following basic principles of low-fat eating. Here's my strategy for getting out of Fat City. Wanna join me?

INCREASE YOUR FAT IQ

I’m not going to count grams of fat. However, it’s important to know where the fat is in your diet. You can purchase a pocket fat guide such as "Harriet Roth’s Fat Counter" (Signet) to get an idea of what the fat content is in foods. You probably know most of the bad guys already: fatty cuts of meat such as spare ribs, whole diary products, cooking oils, fired foods and mayonnaise.

Fat counters will also give the percentage of fat in each food, but don’t go crazy with every little bitty thing. It’s what you eat over several days or a week, not in each dish. Once you get an idea of what foods to avoid or eat in moderation, you won’t be constantly looking at the fat counter like a tourist checking a dictionary.

WRITE IT DOWN

Again, you only need to do this early on to find out where the fat is in your diet and how your eating patterns have been sabotaging you. One thing I found out is that I’m eating too many calories in the evening. The body can store only so much food during a short period. What it can’t use is stored as fat.

I also found out that there were often long periods of time without eating. This can lead to bingeing. Dieticians suggest not going more than five hours without eating something. It can be a long way from lunch to dinner sometimes, so much on popcorn or fresh fruit in the late afternoon before you get famished.

PUT YOUR KITCHEN ON A DIET

Get yourself a good nonstick skillet. Woks without nonstick surfaces are also good choices because they use little oil.

Invest in a pressure cooker to make dried bean dishes (great fat substitutes) a lot faster. Make sure you roasting pans have racks to let fat drip away during cooking.

Buy a fat skimmer such as the Joul fat ladle or the Souper Strain fat separator. Make sure you have good sharp knives to cut veggies easily and poultry sheers to remove that excess fat and skin from poultry.

Popcorn is a great low-fat snack, but not if it’s cooked in oil. So get a hot-air popcorn popper. Ice cream is a real treat, especially if you make it at home in an ice cream maker using low-fat milk or yogurt.

Make better use of your microwave oven, especially for vegetables and fish.

Put tea bags in the cookie jar.

Go through your cupboards and find out where the "fat traps" are. Do you have more oil than vinegar? Reverse that ratio.

SHOPPING

Read labels for fat content, of course, but also do the one-step shuffle. Start buying foods that are just one step lower in fat than what you’ve been buying. Instead of whole milk, buy two-percent. Instead of two-percent, buy one-percent.

Buy more chicken and fish and less red meat, though lean cuts of red meat, such as pork tenderloin and beef eye roast are fine. (Game such as venison is very low in fat.)

Cheese can be just as fatty as meat, but there are low-fat cheeses such as Jarlsberg Lite. I don’t like completely fatless cheeses because they have very little flavor.

Have plenty of low-fat alternatives on hand. Want to nosh on tortilla chips? Buy Guiltless Gourmet brand. Or make your own: cut tortillas in wedges and lay on a cookie sheet without overlapping. Bake about five minutes on each side at 375 degrees, or until just crisp.

Hit those farmers’ markets like mad and always, always, always have fresh fruit around.

GO MEATLESS

You don’t have to become a vegetarian, but with so much great produce available, going without a major source of fat (animal protein) is a lot easier to do. Grill some "meaty" mushrooms for an appetizer, or put them in pizza instead of pepperoni. Go crazy with tomatoes in pasta sauce, salsa or salads. Or do a whole meal of frilled veggies.

Keep the portion of food you eat the same – or even increase it. But bulk up on grains and pastas accented with small amounts of meat or cheese. That way you won’t feel deprived.

And speaking of feeling deprived, don’t turn off your teenagers by withholding the grated Parmesan with pasta or mozzarella with pizza. Just let them add it themselves.

COOKING

Outdoor grilling produces a maximum of flavor with a minimum of fat. Add more flavor with mesquite or other wood chips. Spray skillets with cooking sprays for sauteing with a minimum of fat. Cook onions and other vegetables in broth or stock instead of oil or butter.

Instead of trying to reconstitute Aunt Harriet’s famous tamale casserole, avail yourself of the wealth of low-fat cookbooks out there, from light Mexican to low-fat Indian.

Puree "cream" soups in a food processor and then add a minimum of cream, or better yet, evaporated skim milk, at the end.

RETRAIN YOUR TASTE BUDS

We’ve gotten used to the feel of fat in our mouths, so now we have to get unused to it. Change up textures with whole grains and vegetables. Use lots of herbs and chili peppers to mask the absence of fats.

Instead of half-and-half in your morning coffee, make a low-fat latte with your espresso machine or do a café au lait by heating low-fat milk in a saucepan and mixing it with coffee.

ALCOHOL

There is evidence that indicates alcohol consumption makes it harder for the body to lose fat. Alcohol also makes you lose your will. And when that goes, you don’t head for the celery.

You don’t have to go on the wagon. But instead of two glasses of wine, drink one. Or make wine spritzers with half wine and half club soda. One of my favorite alcohol alternatives is Spicy V-8 juice. Another is Kaliber, a great non-alcoholic beer.

Drink lots of water and fruit juice too.

SUBSTITUTE, SUBSTITUTE

Don’t deprive yourself, just make smart alternatives. Instead of ice cream, buy excellent ice milks or yogurt from Dreyer’s or Lean Cuisine.

Instead of butter on corn on the cob or other veggies, use butter sprinkles such as Molly McButter. Put low-fat yogurt jazzed up with horseradish on that baked potato instead of sour cream.

Keep our substitutions in the fat category. Don’t worry too much about salt and sugar unless you have high blood pressure or blood sugar problems.

EXERCISE

Dieting without exercise is silly. Start slowly if you must, but keep at it, preferably five times a week.

GUESS WHAT’S COMING TO DINNER? A LOW-FAT MENU THAT WON’T LEAVE YOUR GUESTS WANTING

Do you have to give up you low-fat diet when company comes? No siree.

To begin with, you guests may even thank you for helping them watch their waistlines. Ernie and Ethel might otherwise be saying, "Oh god, we’re going over to Sam’s house for dinner. There goes the diet."

More importantly, food doesn’t have to have cream and butter to taste good. At a recent dinner party, I made a few small low-fat pizzas for hours d’oeuvres. The first course was a variety of grilled vegetables – from Japanese eggplant to Maui onions – and lots of crusty French bread. The main course was grilled halibut with oil-less pesto. And for dessert, crčme brulee, made with fresh fruit, non-fat milk and egg substitute.

Sounds like a lot of food, doesn’t’ it? In fact, one guest said after the grilled vegetable course was cleared, "I thought that was the entrée."

So let that be a lesson. No matter what your mother said, you don’t have to have mass quantities of food to be loved by your guests.

With the grilled vegetables I served cruets of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil for guests to add as they wished. You could even skip the oil and have a variety of vinegars instead. And no one asked for butter with the bread – good bread doesn’t need butter (or olive oil).

While fish is low in fat, my servings were entirely too large. Figure on six ounces of protein at most, less if it’s red meat.

Some other entertaining tips:

Make people work. If you have to play with artichokes and Dungeness crab – both great low-fat foods – you’re going to be eating less food. Another do-it-yourself idea is a shrimp or crayfish boil. Put a mess of either, in their shells, on newspaper and let your guests go at it. Serve with lots of iced low- or no-alcohol beer.
Make s salad bar out of your dining room table. Skip the coleslaw and mayonnaise-based salads and have lots of greens, mushrooms, sprouts, beans and whatever else looks good at the farmers’ market. Have several low-fat dressings and two or three breads.
Concentrate on fruit-based rather than chocolate- or cream-based desserts. Cobblers aren’t bad, but better are compotes of mixed fruit, marinated in liqueur.

THE BEST DINING OUT DEFENSE: A GOOD OFFENSE

Maintaining a low-fat diet is tough enough at home, but eating out can be a minefield.

You shouldn't be discouraged, however. Even when dining in a restaurant, you can have plenty of alternatives. Get away from the idea that you have to have appetizer, entrée and dessert. My wife often orders two appetizers or an appetizer and a salad. (Many restaurants have more interesting appetizers than entrees anyway.)

Ask questions. Many restaurants have lightened their menus. For example, you might find lamb chops with a sauce made from stock reduction that has virtually no fat in it.

The overall philosophy is to avoid being a victim. If you feel like having a Big Mac, have it. But then resolve to make it up later. No matter what you ate today, tomorrow is a clean slate.

Big Macs and quick bites are how a lot of us eat. But meals on the go can be a problem. Last week, I rushed out of the house before I could eat breakfast. After an early appointment, I looked up and down street after street, only to find fried chicken joints, taco parlors and lunch-meat-heavy delis. I settled for a pint of orange juice.

The solution, of course, is to pack a lunch (or breakfast) with foods you've selected carefully at home. Don't assume you'll "pick something up" on the way to work or find something acceptable in the company cafeteria. Basically, don't leave yourself vulnerable (i.e., hungry) when you have few low-fat choices.

If you're going to a meeting or luncheon where you know the food will be a disaster for our diet, pack a lunch or a snack. Or find out ahead of time if you can have a special meal. That goes for airline meals, too. Or eat before the meeting so that the Danish and doughnuts won't tempt you.

If you're socializing, be selective about what you eat. Stick with the shrimp cocktail instead of the Brie. Remember, too, the more alcohol you consume, the greater the chance the munchies will get to you.

What else can you do to fight fat when eating outside the home?

Eat bread (unless it's pepperoni bread) but shun the butter. (Just tell the waiter to take it away. Don't tempt yourself.)
Eat slowly. It takes time for you body to know that you're full. You may not want dessert after two leisurely courses.
Choose foods that are grilled, broiled, roasted, steamed, poached, baked or stir-fried rather than those that are breaded, fried, creamed, buttery, in gravy, scalloped or au gratin.
Instead of fatty desserts, try fruit sorbets or a frothy cappuccino to end the meal.
Think ethnic, especially Asian. Asian cuisines can stretch a piece of protein from here to Beijing.
If you're going to a salad bar, put the dressing in a separate container and add judiciously. Better yet, stick your fork in the dressing before you stab the pieces of salad.
Don't be timid about asking how a dish is prepared. It's your money - and your body.
Call ahead to find out what the menu is like if the restaurant is unfamiliar to you. Ask if the chef might be willing to make substitutions or special dishes.

LOW FAT BREAKFAST KEEPS TEMPTATION AT BAY

Getting a good nutritional start in the morning is always important, but especially if you're on a low-fat diet. You don't want to be so hungry at 11 AM that you'll eat anything in sight.

Whole-grain cereal with fresh fruit has been one of my breakfast staples for years. I'm a bagel freak, so bagels are always in the freezer. But cream cheese and other standard spreads are out. Instead I use light cream cheese, which has about half the calories of regular. To bolster the flavor, I mix in chives or pimentos.

Lebna is a yogurt with much of the water drained out. It's thick enough to spread, has a nice tang and contains only seven grams of fat per ounce, only two more than light cream cheese. Occasionally, I'll mix in some toasted and ground cumin. Look for Lebna in Middle Eastern markets.

For other bagel spreads, try part-skim ricotta, which has less fat than low-fat cream cheese. Ruth Spear, author of "Low Fat & Loving It" (Warner Books), suggests a breakfast ricotta spread of one cup part-skim ricotta mixed with two tablespoons non-fat yogurt. It contains one gram of fat per tablespoon.

Whether using low-fat cream cheese, ricotta or cottage cheese, fold in lots of finely chopped vegetables, such as cucumber, tomato and onion to bulk up the spread and lessen the overall fat used.

Fresh fruit is essential for breakfast. Sometimes, the night before, I'll make my breakfast by chopping up whatever I have lying around and letting it marinate with lemon juice and some liqueur (Maraschino is my favorite).

Bananas that have turned black and other fruit that has passed its prime are candidates for smoothies. Put a banana or two in a blender or food processor with orange juice or some other juice and whir. I add a teaspoon of vitamin C crystals and occasionally some honey.

Save the egg dishes for the weekends and follow these guidelines:

Use a nonstick skillet or butter-flavored spray.
Make the filling, not the eggs, the most important part of the egg dish. I'm very fond of the Italian frittatas and Spanish tortillas. In the tortillas especially, the egg is used primarily as a binder for vegetables and potatoes.
Make omelets or scrambled eggs with twice as many whites as yolks.
Egg substitutes aren't bad if you've got a good filling.
Crank up the seasoning with fresh chives (one of the best egg herbs), parsley and tarragon.
Most egg dishes require more salt than people give them. Don't try to watch salt and fat at the same time unless you have a condition that warrants it.
Worry less about sugar and honey in breakfast and more about butter and margarine. If you must use butter or margarine for toast, it should be at room temperature for even spreading; you'll use less that way.

BEAT THE CLOCK WITH A WEEK'S WORTH OF FAST LOW-FAT MEAL IDEAS

You want to eat low-fat but after a full work day, you're hungry, and you don't want to think about grams of fat. You just want to feed your face, pronto.

Take heart. The principles for meals-in-minutes are the same, whether you eat low-fat or not. Keep a well-stocked pantry, make use of convenience items and get maximum advantage from appliances such as the microwave oven and food processor.

A well-stocked pantry is half the battle of the bulge. Just make sure those artichoke hearts are in water, not oil. Ditto for tuna. Also have lots of canned beans (black, garbanzo, pinto and cannellini), roasted peppers, dried pastas (fresh pasta doesn't cook that much faster), clams, rice (basmati, arborio, long grain), chicken stock (for sauteeing onions and garlic instead of oil), frozen peas, onions, garlic and potatoes.

Supplement that pantry with ready-cut items from the salad bar or produce section, such as sliced bell peppers, mushrooms, chopped onions, shredded cabbage or salad mixes, and chopped garlic. (Yes, they cost more, but the convenience is worth it if it keeps you on track.) Use cherry tomatoes instead of large tomatoes that have to be cut up. Check out the deli for cooked shrimp, crab and breast of turkey and chicken.

You could make a quick chili with canned beans, cubes of cooked turkey and Mexican-style stewed tomatoes - doctored to your taste with Tabasco and chili powder. A stir-fry is a breeze with ready-cut veggies, boneless chicken breast, soy, garlic and ginger (look for chopped ginger in jars). Or do a fast bouillabaisse with clam juice, Italian-style tomatoes, the seafood of your choice and a touch of Pernod. Eat it with lots of crusty bread.

Foods not only cook faster in a microwave oven, they need less fat - or no fat at all. Fillets of fish are terrific in the microwave. Top a 5-ounce halibut fillet with a fresh, chunky tomato salsa, nuke it for five minutes and you have a healthful entrée.

Microwaved risotto doesn't save any time but it frees up hands for other dishes. And risottos can be immensely satisfying. Make them with defatted chicken stock, vegetable stock or clam juice instead of water. Throw in exotic, but low-fat, ingredients such as shiitake or other wild mushrooms, chopped radicchio, scallops or other shellfish.

The food processor makes fast work of tomato sauces. What could be better than fresh, uncooked tomato sauce with beautiful summer tomatoes? Just whir them (don't even bother to peel) with fresh basil, a touch of garlic and a smidge of fruity olive oil.

Low-fat bean dips are filling and easy to make with the food processor. Serve two with sliced red bell peppers, wedges of fennel, carrot and celery sticks and toasted pita triangles. It's a meal.

For a lower-fat hummus, substitute chicken stock and a small amount of intensely flavored sesame oil in place of the tahini (sesame paste). For an absolutely no-fat bean dip, mix jarred salsa with canned black beans, some chopped cilantro, cumin and lime juice.

Pasta and pizza are two great quick and low-fat meals. Choose pasta dishes with seafood; they don't cry out for cheese. Pizza made with packaged crust can be quick and low-fat as long as you go easy on the mozzarella.

I'M A NEW MAN - OR AT LEAST A LEANER ONE: THE SECRETS OF MY SUCCESS

In the month I spent on this diet, the stock market went down, and so did my weight - from 196 pounds to 186 pounds in one month.

How did I do it? By following an unspecified but fairly conscientious low-fat diet. I didn't have any set menus to follow. No drill instructors told me what to eat every day.

Nothing was totally forbidden, thought I did manage to get through the month without a pat of butter. My goal was to simply maintain a diet that was between 20 and 25 percent fat. I checked my fat Counter booklet periodically to make sure certain foods were in the appropriate parameters. But I wasn't a slave to it.

Basically, I was just much more aware of what I ate. I kept a diary so I couldn't' kid myself about what I really ate. When I had my diet analyzed before starting this diet, my daily caloric intake was 2,911, 42 percent of it fat. My daily caloric count on the final week of my diet was about 1,900 calories, and the fat had dropped to an astounding 19 percent.

I also lowered my cholesterol from 254 to 192. (The HDL component or "good" cholesterol went from 64 to 60. The LDL component or "bad" cholesterol went from 175 to 115.)

In addition, because I substituted fresh fruit for pastry and ate lots of other carbohydrates, my fiber level went sky high, as did levels of vitamins A and C.

If this sounds like I starved myself, I didn't. On the contrary, I often ate heartily. I never felt deprived except for wanting a second glass of wine on occasion. I didn't give up alcohol entirely, but I cut my consumption by about two-thirds to less than a glass a day. (There is some evidence that alcohol can hinder the ability to metabolize fat.)

Some additional observations:

Perhaps the biggest change in my diet was not what I ate but when. I completely eliminated noshing after dinner, even seemingly harmless foods such as fresh fruit. If you eat too much food over too short a period, you body cant' process it properly. The excess turns to guess what?
I thought about or measured everything I put into my mouth. Boy, it's amazing how little olive oil you use when you're measuring judiciously.
Though I didn't give up meat entirely, I became a semi-vegetarian. Most of the meat I ate was chicken and seafood. Eating a vegetarian meal even once or twice a week can make a difference.
God bless canned beans! From bean salads to bean purees to beans and rice and beans with pasta, the possibilities are limitless. Who needs to spend hours cooking dried beans? The exception is dried lentils, which cook fairly quickly.
Running neck and neck with canned beans as the fat-fighter's best friend is salsa. I ate tons of it, both fresh and jarred, especially with oil-less tortilla chips. It proved a good low-fat way to stave off hunger pangs while I was cooking dinner.
My father used to say, "Hungry? Eat bread." Bread is a wonderful filler upper, and many good breads are made without oils or shortening and are thus low in fat.
I've gotten pretty adept at making steamed non-fat milk for my morning coffee. When I combine it with drip, dark-roasted coffee, I have a drink somewhere between cappuccino and latte that tastes better than what some coffee houses make. (Be wary of non-dairy creamers, however. Many contain hydrogenated oil.)
I got to enjoy eating bagels with nothing on them. If they're good quality and fresh - and especially if they're warm - you'll be surprised at how good they taste. My breakfast often consisted of a bagel and a smoothie - very low fat. To make sure I had stuff on hand for smoothies, I keep berries and bananas in the freezer.
Yes, I did eat in restaurants, but they were mostly Asian restaurants, where meat is used sparingly.
- When I went off the wagon, I didn't make myself crazy. I just got right back on track the next day.
I didn't increase my exercise program, but seeing those pounds come off helped keep me from skipping a day here and there. (Dieting and exercise have a way of reinforcing each other.) Long, slow exercise (in running, they call it LSD, long slow distance) burns up fat better than short, intense exercise. But better three days a week of racquetball than nothing at all.