Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
I Wish I Knew How to LOSE You--The Weight Loss Thread (check first post)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on January 12, 2010, 08:12:38 pm ---It's not easy going back after some time away. Congrats on taking the step today!
--- End quote ---
I just keep reminding myself how much freakin' hard-earned cash I have to spend for a gym membership. >:( That's a powerful incentive to keep me going!
SFEnnisSF:
My gym is free and at work. I ain't got no excuse!
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: sfericsf on January 12, 2010, 11:35:52 pm ---My gym is free and at work. I ain't got no excuse!
--- End quote ---
We've got one of those, too, and I could work out there, but before I could use it, I'd have to jump through hoops of some kind of physical assessment (presumably so I don't die of a heart attack on company property), I'd have to stay late--and take public transit home after rush hour :-\ --and it wouldn't be accessible on weekends, and I'd be working out surrounded by middle-aged women--instead of by the cute and hot gay men and boys who frequent the gym in my neighborhood. ;D The way I see it, if you're gonna work out, you might as well have nice scenery while you're doing it. ;D
mariez:
--- Quote from: atz75 on January 11, 2010, 02:59:18 pm ---That's a good suggestion Paul. I love salads with fresh lemon juice. Acutally I often will squeeze the lemon into a little bit of olive oil and add some crushed garlic and a dash of salt. Totally delicious! And, I firmly believe that olive oil is very healthy.
--- End quote ---
That's exactly what I do, Amanda! I love the taste of lemon and I use fresh lemon juice a lot while cooking - it gives a nice fresh zing to just about everything.
There was some talk about candied ginger a few pages back, and last night Alton Brown made some on his "Good Eats" show on the Food Network. Looked pretty easy - and delicious, and the reviews for his recipe are great:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/candied-ginger-recipe/index.html
Candied Ginger
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2008
Show: Good EatsEpisode: Ginger: Rise of the Rhizome
Rated: 5 stars out of 5Rate itRead users' reviews (15)
Cook Time:1 hr 0 min
Level: Easy
Yield: about 1 pound
Prep15 min Inactive Prep-- Cook1 hr 0 min Total:1 hr 15 min
Ingredients
Nonstick spray
1 pound fresh ginger root
5 cups water
Approximately 1 pound granulated sugar
Directions:
Spray a cooling rack with nonstick spray and set it in a half sheet pan lined with parchment.
Peel the ginger root and slice into 1/8-inch thick slices using a mandoline. Place into a 4-quart saucepan with the water and set over medium-high heat. Cover and cook for 35 minutes or until the ginger is tender.
Transfer the ginger to a colander to drain, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid. Weigh the ginger and measure out an equal amount of sugar. Return the ginger and 1/4 cup water to the pan and add the sugar. Set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until the sugar syrup looks dry, has almost evaporated and begins to recrystallize, approximately 20 minutes. Transfer the ginger immediately to the cooling rack and spread to separate the individual pieces. Once completely cool, store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Save the sugar that drops beneath the cooling rack and use to top ginger snaps, sprinkled over ice cream or to sweeten coffee.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
We needed a study? ::)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14calories.html?hp
Calorie Postings No Match for Holiday Gluttony
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: January 13, 2010
When a study on New Yorkers’ eating habits was released last week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, city health officials and the report’s authors focused on what appeared to be a triumph of government policy: After the city began requiring restaurant chains to post calories, customers ordered lighter food.
But the study also revealed a stronger trend, one that speaks to the weight of human nature: Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Yorkers seemed to lose all control. Statistically speaking, they pigged out.
The gluttony response detected by the study, which looked only at what New Yorkers were buying from Starbucks, may not surprise people who have eaten their way through Thanksgiving dinners and multiple office parties.
Then there was the New Year’s effect: While the average customer did buy lighter food from Starbucks after the calorie posting law took effect on April 1, 2008, the calorie drop was even greater right after Jan. 1, 2009.
To those with a more psychological than statistical bent, like weight-loss specialists, food industry analysts and, yes, the Starbucks customers who are the guinea pigs in all this, the study sums up the resilience of the human spirit in the face of good government, the persistent urge to eat, drink and be merry, to make New Year’s resolutions and then break them with impunity, and to go on yo-yo diets, despite the best-laid plans of the nanny state.
“I’ve always known that seasonability is more important than anything else,” said Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, a consumer marketing research company, who has been watching the way people eat for 30 years. “If we did what we say we do, we’d be a thin nation. We like food, and food has a place in our lives at different times in our lives.”
As reliable as, well, winter, spring, summer and fall, the eating season begins at Halloween (soup consumption soars in the fall) and peaks around New Year’s, Mr. Balzer said. The dieting season, he said, begins “sometime after the Super Bowl, and they keep making the Super Bowl later and later,” but people still indulge in chocolate for Valentine’s Day and begin seriously cutting calories only in March, as they contemplate stripping down for summer and beach wear. (The study, conducted by Stanford University researchers, showed the calorie drop occurring before the Super Bowl, suggesting that Starbucks customers do not set their body clocks by the football calendar.)
Starbucks gave the researchers access to millions of receipts encompassing every transaction in New York, Boston and Philadelphia from Jan. 1, 2008, to Feb. 28, 2009.
Before the law took effect, customers buying sandwiches, muffins or snacks from one of New York City’s 222 Starbucks shops ordered items with roughly the same number of calories as did Starbucks customers in Boston and Philadelphia.
After the law took effect, New York customers ordered 14 percent fewer calories from food than before — either by buying less food or lower-fat food — and came in below Boston and Philadelphia, where there was no calorie posting. (There was no appreciable reduction in calories from lattes, caramel macchiatos and other drinks, the core of Starbucks’ business. Over all, the average New York customer walked away from the counter with 6 percent fewer calories.)
As the year went on, New Yorkers gradually began ordering higher-calorie foods, but remained below the other two cities, peaking around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Around Christmas and New Year’s, New Yorkers were once again consuming as many calories in Starbucks food as Philadelphians or Bostonians.
“One interpretation is that it’s the holidays, so you cut yourself some slack and you don’t really worry about it,” said Alan Sorensen, an associate professor of economics and strategic management at Stanford who was a co-author of the study. “Another, given our study design, could be that you just get a different type of customer during the holidays, but I don’t think that’s the explanation. It’s more likely something about consumer psychology.”
To show how ingrained eating habits were, one of his Stanford co-authors, Phillip Leslie, suggested putting the word “calories” into Google Trends, which tracks the words people enter in Google’s search field. Up popped year after year of graphs that looked a lot like the one in the Starbucks study.
“I think it’s hilarious,” Dr. Leslie said. Mr. Balzer, the marketing analyst, noted that similar graphs result from search terms like crockpot, soup and especially recipes.
That pattern can have a long-term impact, said Dr. Marina Kurian, medical director of the New York University program for surgical weight loss. Over the course of a year, she said, people typically gain a pound, despite dieting, and over a decade, that adds up to 10 unwanted pounds.
“We think, maybe wrongly, that we’re going to lose that weight gain by dieting in the new year,” she said.
Starbucks, too, is aware of seasonal imperatives, and so it offers the Pumpkin Spice Latte in the fall, Cranberry Bliss Bar in December, and 90-calorie beverages in January, “because customers are thinking about getting the new year off to a good start,” said Sanja Gould, a spokeswoman.
Some customers interviewed at the Starbucks at Broadway and West 95th Street in Manhattan this week said that the calorie postings had changed their buying habits. Others were unmoved.
“Aren’t the holidays like a good way to celebrate gluttony?” asked Erich Fuchs, a consultant to nonprofit organizations, sipping a coffee, black, insouciantly. He said he bought Starbucks scones for his partner, but preferred home cooking for himself, and never worried about calorie counts, only portion size.
A friend sitting across from him, Patrick Stucky, nursed a tea and said he never made New Year’s resolutions, explaining, “I think I’m perfect the way I am.”
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