Glamour on a budget - Mattie Roberts

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"Mattie, Help me! I'm gaining weight and I don't know why."
Saturday, December 20, 2008

"Mattie, help me! I'm gaining weight and I don't know why. I work out every day. I eat three balanced meals a day, and I'm moderate with my alcohol intake. I don't eat much sugar or processed food, either. But my clothes are tight and I've gained about 5 lbs since October. What 's up?"

This is the lament of a Texas diva with a diet dilemma. She thinks she's doing all the right things, but there are some misconceptions in her approach to keeping a happy weight.

We've all been trained to think that three meals a day is the healthy approach to weight loss, but for most of us it just adds up to extra calories. With parties and yummy treats at the office or in gift baskets, it's easy to lose track of your total intake. That's why I recommend eating one tiny meal and one real meal per day. For me, the real meal is dinner, hands down! I look forward to it all day. The 'three square meals' thing probably came from a time when we were more active as a society and three meals a day was a bit of a luxury.

The best way to get a handle on it is to look at what slim people eat. I have always paid attention to this whether I was a guest in a chic Parisian home or marveling at how my beautiful model-friend (age 44 with two children) stays so damn skinny. Then there's the highly annoying male friend who "can eat anything he wants" never exercises and still doesn't gain weight. In all cases, the slim ones don't actually eat as much as it seems. Either they skip breakfast...actually this is true in most cases...or the sheer quantity is not all that great.

Such is the case of the skinny man. At lunch the other day, he talked through most of the meal...and although he ordered a huge lunch, really just sort of picked at it and ended up eating about half the plate. He does the same thing for dinner. Huge meals, always dessert...and I can't recall him ever finishing any of it. He barely touches breakfast, so you might as well call it skipped and never snacks.

That is another commonality of skinny folks...they seldom snack. Especially in the European tradition -- it's inconceivable.

This summer I met the most unremittingly chic Italian woman. She subsisted on coffee and perhaps a little bit of something in the mid morning, another coffee-thing around 4PM...with another tiny bite of something, then she would thoroughly enjoy a moderate dinner and wine, lots of wine. She was a walker, so she was out and about all day, but not a formal exerciser.

This formula seems to work for many women who have that enviable whippet-thin physique. My aforementioned model-friend does this and says she really doesn't get that hungry because she's so busy during the day. I tried it and got pretty hungry, so I think it's mind over matter. I like my small meal mid-afternoon to keep me going.

I have noticed that if I skip breakfast (I have coffee with lots of whole milk) then I'm really good to go until about 3 or 4PM -- hence the delightful habit of taking tea! Sometimes "tea" may be a diet Dr. Pepper (yum!) and an apple with peanut butter. Or it will be a cup of green tea and an ounce or so of Guyere with white truffle honey drizzled over it. Which, by the way, is so good it will send you into paroxysms of moaning, eye-rolling bliss -- it's just that good.

I think our perplexed friend should take a long look at the actual amount she's consuming; a food diary works wonders for this -- it can be quite horrifying if you have never done it before. She would also do well to skip a meal here and there and downsize the remaining meals. By keeping up the exercise, she won't run the risk of slowing her metabolism.

If you have to do lots of lunches, take a page from the pros -- the Ladies Who Lunch. It's clear soup and a small salad or half a sandwich or a plate of steamed vegetables. A chicken paillard or piece of fish on field greens is a little heavier, but you just cut back in the evening. Seems sort of miserly, but lunch can sneak in a lot of extra calories if you are not careful. Add in a slice of bread, olive oil and a glass of white wine and you have just added 400 calories to your day -- or you can run 4 miles to correct it. Sometimes it lunch I would rather just have the bread and wine and skip the rest...and I bet I'm not the only one.

Perhaps that will be my new plan. Coffee with milk in the morning. A glass of champagne with fresh bread and butter for lunch. Nap. Then a moderate dinner consisting of salmon, veggies and the rest of the champagne....sounds like a winner!