The Pastry Chef Diet
Required reading:
Or You Don't Look Anorexic

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/magazine/anorexia-obesity-eating-disorder.html
This feature is what got me on the right path for dieting and/or what led to painless weight loss and overall better health. (p.s. this is my experience and advice and I am a food writer – not a health professional but it might help you….)

Read this first:

‘You Don’t Look Anorexic’ - The New York Times

Don’t talk to me of diets! I starved for years. Despite being informed about food and nutrition (it’s in my training as a food professional) I went to nutritionists and dieticians and thyroid specialists etc. to no avail. I was chronically underfed (but didn’t look it!) but carrying extra pounds I didn’t earn. AND I have always exercised without stopping since I was a fourteen-year-old girl. I believe exercise is good for the head and keeps your body flexible, but I never counted on it as a tactic to lose weight or eat up calories and I didn’t ever work out ‘extra’ in a ploy to lose more weight. Because…you can’t keep that up especially as you age up. You just wear yourself out. Bottom line: I was unhappy and confounded and no one seemed to have any answers other than telling me I was eating more than I was aware of or genetically prone to being plump.

So objectively, one day, I decided no one really knows 'me' and no one really knows what they're doing because almost anyone in the diet game has skin in the game (in 2024 the diet industry was worth $296.2 billion) and are ridiculously partisan to one approach or another and aren’t, overall, supportive.  Everyone thinks they’re an expert (big problem: they don’t hear you nor ingest any new facts) and their opinions if not rigid are often also tethered to you spending money on their wisdom and following them on Instagram.

There are also too many fad diets that aren't sustainable, and I know all of them. I did intermittent, low carb, paleo, vegetarian, cabbage, Weight Watchers - you name it; I suffered it. And the 8 glasses of water – no more!). Each serious bout of dieting just garnered me more weight as a new starting point. Medication? I tried one once for about 6 days and got so sick I would never reconsider it. And Ozempic (unless you have diabetes let's say) doesn't really teach you (once you're off it) about good food choices or being aware of how you eat (are you hungry - are you moody - are you tired?). But honestly the bad experience I had with this fat-inhibitor sort of medication was enough to scare me off (and that's after trying for decades to lose and I was desperate). I concluded that: if we were all on a deserted island, and there was no food, some of us might slim down faster but in a few months, without food, we'd all be gone. So it had to be possible to lose weight with the right amount and type of fuel.

Anyway – based on the article above from the New York Times I decided I was perhaps an overweight anorexic. As extreme and strange as the concept seemed, it was the only thing I ever read that resonated with my experienced. Based on that feature, I decided to eat more (I always ate nutritiously anyway) and see if I could re-establish a metabolism or repair it a bit.  I tracked calories because it's interesting to see what and how you're eating and too many times, I'd try and lower my calories on a day here or there and reason: well, I've been 'good' and then wait for an instant weight drop -which didn't happen. In retrospect, when I consider the years of 800 - 1200 calorie intakes for months and months, I think I only taught my body I was starving it and so, bless its wisdom, clung to everything and probably interpreted a wedge of lettuce as a chocolate sundae.  In fact, each time I lessened my intact to 1000 or 1200 calories, I would gain weight. In addition, I stopped avoiding carbs. We need  carbs; they bolster us and are filling and so potatoes (especially sweet potatoes) and rice came back into my diet. The guilt of eating them took more time.

I also tracked calories to keep my intake level each day - instead of high and low calories (larger and smaller food days) I aimed to be consistent. I believe that made my body relax and do its work – that is, the work of taking care of me. I believe it’s the fluctuations we subject our body to that also make it run amuck. The body will hold onto to each calorie like it’s 500 calories if it thinks that’s the last meal it’s ever going to get. It does that to help us survive. Our bodies are far more intelligent (and kinder) than we are.

I gave this new approach four months to see if I lost a pound (I weighed in once at the outset and four months later to see any difference; I never have weighed myself since). I also decided some people lose 5 pounds a month and if I lost 4 ounces a month, that would be my happy norm and I would accept that too. Once I saw I was beginning to lose weight, I decided to give this non-diet approach three years - i.e. it was not a quick fix to be in a dress for a wedding but ...for always. Something I could live with. As I was no longer starving, it was easy to maintain. If I wanted a McDonalds sundae, and I did in the beginning - I just tracked it. But when you eat a 350-calorie sundae, that’s a good chunk of your daily total and you're left with less calories for the rest of the day, so you begin to make wiser choices and you actually, naturally want the better things.  Tracking things like sweets made me more aware of where I wanted to spend my calories. I sooner have a salad and a spicy broiled chicken breast and roast potato. My body needed it and my brain too (and my mood) I also realized with tracking (which means you honestly have to double check amounts and weights of food to some extent) that nibbles add up. If you’re eating 1500 calories a day and not tracking 300 of them due to nibbling, who are you fooling?  Tracking makes you ‘real’ and accountable. Nibbling is never about hunger (for me); it means I’m tuned out (especially when testing recipes) and it’s no good making a real effort when you’re quietly sabotaging it out the back door where you think no one is watching.

Speaking of nibbling -the success of this approach depends on always having food in the fridge ready to go. Not carrot sticks and hummus or zero-fat yogurt spiked with Mrs. Dash but real food. Make a chicken (even for one person) or a Butterball Turkey Roast (90 minutes, add sweet potatoes and salad etc.) or buy a meal or two out. The problem with a lot of diets is they tell you to cut up fruits and vegetables to be ready. But you need decent full meals (protein!) at the ready, like a beany-burrito or chicken curry or Pho (my favorite) soup with chicken. Don’t think of ‘lite’ food or diet food. Just find healthy food you like that is satisfying, add up the calories and let your body do its work. If you have to buy Lean Cuisine as a back-up when you start eating better - so be it. Eating more is counter-intuitive but it is as likely to work for you as it does/did for me. Also don’t eat anything you don’t really like because ‘it’s healthy’. I only eat fruits I like (mangos, kiwis, berries, apples) and I don’t force myself to eat things (cod or halibut, egg white omelets, weird salmon dishes, celery sticks, tofu cheese, tofu hotdogs, or cashew ice-cream) that I don’t. I learned to make a cream cheese from high-protein, low-fat Greek yogurt and slather that on a bagel – because that’s one thing that works for me as well as seasoning foods with exotic spices and I happen to like Greek yogurt. I’ve learned to savour foods more and appreciate how I am nourishing myself. There is nothing I won't allow myself to eat. Nothing is off limits -but it has to be tabulated. And I have to sincerely be hungry for it - not having it because I'm in a mood or restless. One Werther candy is 30 calories (sigh: of sugar) but three is about 100 calories and that begins to dent your daily intake and nutrition. A cup of berries is great but leaving out the whole pint and mindlessly eating the whole thing will also add up - healthy as berries are. Also if you have a calorie deficit later in the day, most calorie trackers will indicate what you're missing (fat, carbs, protein) and you can fill in accordingly to balance your diet. So measure or weigh when you start this journey.

Through this counter intuitive way of eating I realized in a way I never did before that our brains and muscles need food - especially decent protein. Before I thought of food as fuel (despite being a cookbook author and recipe creator) and more or less of it only about what size clothing eating too much or too little of it would result in. It’s unkind to play games with our bodies and starve it of the nutrients (quality and quantity) we need. Plus, the more you eat well, the concept of ‘cheat days’ aren’t appealing. A cheat day makes no sense if you think about it. You’re starving all week to have one day when you break out of jail. That’s no way to live life.

I haven't weighed myself for several years but my size in clothing has dropped along with my blood pressure and people noticed. I also decided to dress much better no matter what shape I was in (and this I did from the get-go of this ‘diet journey’) because it buoyed my spirits and upped my confidence. I deserve to look nice - no matter what (and so do you). And I've never again had a rice cake with 1/2 teaspoon of jam or 0% fat yogurt vinaigrette since I began this new way of eating. It's actually fascinating to see that once I have a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke once in awhile, the next day, I am content to go back on the journey. It doesn't let out a wild horse of hunger; it just shows me there's a place for everything in a measured way.

I don't weigh myself because.... that just makes me miserable when the scale doesn't reflect my efforts and most often, diets, scales and life being what it is, a scale won’t reflect your efforts. If I have a bad day or two (family suppers or dining out or starved all day, ate too late at night- I just keep on, keeping on. I get back to it the next day (and happily – it’s easy because again: I'm not starving). Overall, I like the simple way I usually eat. I do think ahead a bit. I also never go to bed hungry thinking I've 'won' by missing a meal. It won't help. Consistency helps. I also found the more I ate (decent real meals) the less I snacked and less sweets I wanted. Before, I wanted sweets because I was hungry (and tired) all the time from starving.

I would say I lost about 40 pounds (given how I look, feel and the sizes of clothing I now buy). Each step on the way I sort of have to 'grow' into a new shape and sense of self.  I can pass a mirror and look at myself instead of looking away. I always exercised and I still do because it's simply a good thing to do - not to lose weight (it never made me lose weight and starting crazy exercise routines is a doomed endeavor).

Lastly, the reason nutritionists and dieticians weren’t helpful for me (or the ones I saw) is because they don't always have the answers, and many are 101% certain their clients are cheating or stuffing themselves. Or they believe women over a certain age can’t lose weight or they believe thyroid issues makes it impossible. I can’t work with someone (expert or not) that doesn’t believe in me or positive outcomes or isn’t curious about the ever changing scenario of human nutrition. Nothing is ever impossible. There is always a strategy or a few solutions if one is curious and open-minded. I hated that blame thing (some professionals said I was a pastry chef and therefore that was an occupational hazard!) and I knew something else was afoot (in my case). I also made peace with the notion that if I did try this new way of eating (more food versus less food) and I was still overweight but healthy - then I would accept it. But in the end, I didn’t have to.

Marcy Goldman

P.S. there are books on intuitive eating which is also helpful but I have to underscore that in my case: the first issue was eating too little - eating mindfully or mindlessly was a distant second consideration.