I'm With Fatty by Edward Ugel

I spent a few hours of my day reading Edward Ugel's I'm With Fatty: Losing Fifty Pounds in Fifty Miserable Weeks. It's a pretty short read detailing 6 foot 2 Ed's attempt to lose 50 pounds - from 263 lbs to 213 lbs within 50 weeks (do I call him Edward? Ed? Mr Ugel? I guess Ed, because he talks to us really familarly). His writing style is pretty droll; I don't really laugh but I get his jokes/allusions to other literature works when he mentions them (in particular, the Thor reference!).

In dishing out his struggles, Ed sheds light on his personality, his culinary training (Dude! 5ish years of learning about ingredients and cooking with a French chef! I would love that!), his childhood food culture, his - frankly speaking - addiction to food, his exercise, and the way his family supports him. Stuffed in are snippets that make the story realistic: the occasional/frequent (depending on your point of view) relapses, the binges, the 3+ pints of ice cream in a day, the slurping up of a Big Mac (without the center bread piece, to make him feel better). You start to care for this Ed guy, perhaps due to empathy, or just the way he sounds so intent on trying. You want him to lose all those 50 lbs, even though the faceless obese 1/3 of the American population (or 2/3, if you want to stick in the "overweight" people too) need to lose some 50+ lbs to be labelled "healthy" according to BMI standards. The way Ed pleads with himself to stick to his "Fatty Project" and the clear fact that he gets all depressed and mindless when his wife leaves him (For a week. For a conference. This isn't a drama book.) all give some sort of sincerity to our narrator. In addition, he doesn't belittle us with any pompous attitude; instead, he uses layperson's speech and - the best part - he doesn't preach some sorta diet. This is a dude telling a story, not selling a fad diet/book/marketing some product for $$$ (*nod to Dr. Atkins, Dr. McDougall, Dr. South Beach, and the "Is Sugar Toxic?" article in the NY Times, by Dr. Lustig*).

Oh wait, Ed IS selling a book - this one. It's okay, he needs the money. This is his job after all; after being fired from his previous job, his "job" was to stay at home with his kids and adhere to his "Fatty Project" for a year, and write about it. Oh, and cook dinner, which by the way, was another reason I liked him, because my father staunchly believes that mother does the cooking.

Of course, there are parts that I disagree with. I almost skipped past the part about a juice cleansing diet thing that Ed and his personal trainer tried, because

1. Juices for a week for "cleansing" are terribly unhealthy. There is literally no protein in drinking raw vegan juices for a week, let alone much fibre. However, I'm fairly sure there are enough vitamins (except B12, but as Ed does eat animal products, he definitely has enough B12 to last a few months stored in his liver) and minerals for a week, and I suppose a short-term juice diet doesn't cause death or anything too serious. After all, it's better than the french fry & soda diet that 100s/1000+s of people go through, right?

2. Ed claimed that his personal trainer lost 10 lbs within 24 hours, and another 8 lb by the next day. Losing 10 lbs in one day seems rather far-fetched, and my Nutrition 517 professor, Dr Compher, said that it seemed highly unlikely. I suppose this can be explained if Ed's personal trainer has a high BMR (understandable). In addition, Ed did say that his trainer's muscles did look like they atrophied, so I guess that could be a source of the weight loss. Either way, still unrealistic for the layperson.

***Spoiler Alert***

So what happens in the end? After going through a roller coaster of weight gain and loss, Ed finds himself 46 lbs lighter, happy with the fact that he ate healthy and played racquetball through the winter holiday season, and only at an overweight BMI (as opposed to an obese class I BMI)! He's happy, he realises that people at gyms and Weight Watcher meetings aren't snobs or judgmental; they're friendly and/or indifferent. It's a pretty chill ending.

***END Spoiler Alert***

So why am I doing a non-science book review on a food blog? Frankly, I haven't read a good food book a while; in a lot of books, I find the author really critical or utterly obnoxious, or I disagree with a lot of the premises made because they aren't scientifically correct, or are just so self-evident it seems degrading to me to read it. Ed doesn't claim anything scientific, he doesn't arrogantly ridicule others. Quite the contrary. He details his addiction, his obsession, his compulsive eating, and he voices his fears and helplessness. He's one of us. We all want to lose weight for some reason, and we all subconsciously think about it even when we do EpicMealTime-esque dinners. He makes me see myself - I'm a food addict too! I'm obsessed with food too! Sure, I'm classified as "healthy" by BMI standards, but there's currently the frosh 15. According to Ed's doctor, gaining 10 lbs in a month (which Ed did in the first month of his Fatty Project) is a terrible feat. I gained 10+ lbs the first month after taking methimazole last year. Lovely, you know, as it was also prom/beach season (but I didn't go to prom! Harhar!). Since I've generally kept my weight out of this food blog, I don't think I'll stop now, since it's such a vapid topic.

Anyway, as Ed says, if you want to motivate someone to get off being labelled as class I or II obese, threaten them with the fact that they'd probably die from sleep apnea, oh, shall we say, tonight, and that in order to save yourself and see your kids grow old, you have to wear a humiliating breathing mask thing...unless you lose some weight.

I guess it makes me feel glad that, hey, at least I, unlike Ed, don't have "fat pants" - larger sized pants for in case I get fat during the week.

Common Sense...

A common sense is taste. Another one is to actually name a plum a "plum".

I decided to try pecan pie, for the first time in my life. As I looked at the slice of pie, I realised something. This was literally a lump of fat mixed with a lump of sugar. There is no substance. It isn't even disguised as something awesome! The crust is a lump of baked fat and flour. The pecans are chunks of fat. The ... sugar-fat filling is basically brown sugar mixed with butter and spread into a thick gelatinous paste.

I know I can say the same thing about caramel, or toffee, or even chocolate, but that stuff actually tastes amazing. This tasted like fat and sugar in their raw states, which, for some, may be delicious. I, however, would prefer if there was also a cup of cocoa powder in this slice of pie...

I have to say that pecans are delicious, but pecan pies are overkill. They over kill your adipose tissues...

So, the second lack-of-common-sense kind of thing is the fact that they called this plum "sweet fruit". As if "plum" isn't already too generic [There are plenty of varieties of plums. There're the little ones, the big ones, the super sour ones, the ones with the red skins, and they're also related to [or, one compartment] of prunes. Actually, here is a list... which includes the Mirabelle plum, the Damask plum... etc. The fact that it's merely labeled a "sweet fruit" threw me off. It's pretty funny, I suppose.

Soon, they're going to have fruit stickers that say "fruit" on them.

I think I actually threw this sticker away, by accident, since I don't have my fruit sticker book with me in college. I really need to bring it here after November break.

Soy Butter

When we were in Weymouth, MA, I bought some soy nut butter because it was on sale. It was $1.43 for 425g, and this was only because its sell-by date was in two months. I, however, consume nut butters at a rate greater than 212.5 grams/month. Actually, I long to consume a jar of peanut butter within 24 hours, but I think that might kill me, or I might end up regretting it after going through seven rounds of liposuction. Anyway.

If I had to choose, I would always choose peanut butter over any other nut butter [okay, soybeans are legumes... not nuts...so it's technically out of the count. So, let's just say, out of all butters, I'd pick peanut butter]. However, the past few days, I have been utterly obsessed with this crunchy soy butter. Jar appearances aside, this stuff. Is. Creamy. With a nice random crunch, once in a while. Unlike crunchy peanut butter [which I haven't had in at least five years], the crunchy soy parts do not get stuck in my teeth, and nor do they make the butter hard to spread. It's a win-win situation! It's quite neutral tasting, so even people who don't like toasted soy beans will probably enjoy this, although it does not in any way taste like peanut butter. The jar is actually kinda cheesy in both appearance and company name/logo [haha... I.M. Healthy...]. It is not completely healthy though, in my perspective, since there are 15 grams of fat per serving. "Good" fat, yes, but "bad" in the sense that it's, well, fat. As a vegetarian, 90% or more of my fat comes from the monounsaturated or polyunsaturated variety, yet I am not skinny. So, it really depends on how MUCH one consumes. In which case I lose. Every day. So, they should instead name themselves SoyJoy, if that name hadn't already been taken by a granola bar company. This is literally Soy Joy.

The last time I tried soy butter was the creamy one from Trader Joe's... two years ago. It didn't leave that much of an impression on me, and I preferred almond butter to it [Have you noticed how THICK and CREAMY almond butter is? It is literally the densest [read: oiliest] butter out there.

So, this is a completely biased and laudatory post, but I do blog about what I consume, and I basically have been chugging through the jar the past week or so.

Do Twinkies Really Need More Embellishment?

Oh look. Tiramisu. I mean, Twinkie-misu. I mean, crap on fat. Actually, I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be. And... there's an ingredient and method list. Which is longer than this post. How difficult is it to unwrap a Twinkie and slosh it into a bowl of cream?

And... for those who want to marry Twinkies; this is the perfect wedding cake. It's even pre-cut! And, you don't have to buy Thank You gifts, since all your guests are going to die of heart attacks from Twinkie-immersed-in-sugar-and-butter-and-food-colouring!

Please tell me that this book is just a hallucination. I don't actually see a "cookbook" for this thing called a "Twinkie" right? SAY IT ISN'T SO!... This is plain absurd.

Okay, I've never consumed a Twinkie before, so, perhaps they are the most delicious little pieces of gold ever. Truthfully, though, judging by the ingredients and the fact that I like chocolate cake with mousse more than "flavoured sponge filled with oily cream", I probably won't have a predilection for it, anyway.

Also, since April, Costoc has been stocking Veggie Crunchers, which I talked about way back, when my mum bought the exact thing from Kamman. Though, this version is marketed for the U.S. crowd, I'm guessing, and the wrapper is a tad different. The ingredients are the same, though. I was pretty surprised when I saw these at Costco.

And I suppose you've all noticed that my blog has recently been quite devoid of actual items that I've cooked... I've just been really occupied... There are four placement tests [Biology, Chemistry, Calculus, and French] that I need to study for, for college. I also recently have had some time consuming circumstances concerning a certain someone [It's a good thing.] Sorry guys, though, for now.

Rollin' up Graves'.

Short message about Rolos and Graves' Disease.

My previous calc teacher, as you know, kept candy in a drawer for we students, every single day. At one point, I spied this thing that looked like a chocolate, with a golden foil wrapper. It was really sticky, with the caramel inside sticking to my teeth the way benzene sticks together.
Anyway... a few weeks later, at the Hershey store, I realised that they were actually ROLOs. I think that these are significant because I wanted to give one to AP but I ended up chickening out.
Today, I thought of them just because, as usual, I am thinking about food. However, I'm also thinking about not thinking about food, because I actually need to lose 350000 Calories. Okay, maybe not exactly 350000 Calories, but in the past few months, I have gained at least 2 to 3 kgs because my metabolism is slowing down loads, thanks to Graves' Disease. This is a good thing, because it proves that methimazole is working for me, but it sucks for my body since I'm storing everything as glycogen and triglycerides. Tack on a bunch of parties... and plain old exercise doesn't really cut it.
Hmm... at least I know that I can change this. Technically, I'm still of an "average" mass. No such thing as a lost cause. I'm trying to be optimistic.

School Partayyyzzzz!

I'm getting fat.

Okay, that's the cliche thing to say, for a girl, no less, but it's true. The methimazole is slowing down my metabolism, so in theory I should be eating less. However, since we are PARTAYYYING in school [and out of it], I'm still eating a lot of food. Plus, I can't run that fast anymore, so for the same amount of time devoted to running, I burn fewer Calories.

So, on the last two days of school, I had a party in Calculus, Art, English, French, and since we all skipped 6th and 7th period for the senior prank [recreating the Woodstock festival], where there was food, I basically had a party every period of the day. Though, in the whole year, we've never had a party in physics.

But first... at the Environmental Centre yesterday, I was helping out with dyeing bracelets with natural dyes. The Beats way back in the 60s used to do this - using beets - nothing beats this beet typo... turning beet red, yet, Enviro Centre? [ha. ha. ha. That was not one of my "beetter" puns. Wow this is getting really bad.]

So, Calc - bagel party with a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and spinach and artichoke dip!

Art - brownies, cookies, and a rainbow cupcake! [Thanks, AT]

English - Bagel Party - whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and a Boston Cream doughnut from Dunkin' Donuts. There are lots of sprinkles. The pastel coloured ones are actually prettier than the rainbow coloured ones.

French - MG, who is from France, made these brownie-like confections that are a cross between a brownie and a crepe. Seriously, they were awesome! I also ate a bunch of chocolate Munchkins [the only flavour I like] and Sour Patch gummies.

Woodstock - chips. They had cream soda in beer bottle shaped glass bottles, and fake cigarettes. However, I did not partake in the pseudo-druggin' since I'm straight edge [hahahaha].

Jammin'

Yesterday, I had lunch with AP. [I like AP. I hope he likes me too. I digress.] We were talking about playing guitar, and I said that I was bad at guitar, and he said that I couldn't be worse than him. Then I said that we should jam together one day.
I find it funny how "jam" is used in such different contexts. Jam: the fruit & sugar preserve [NOT "JELLY"], rockin' out, getting something STUCK [usually cars, but cupboards can get "jammed"]. As a kid, I didn't really have a predilection for jam... it was just this sticky sweet stuff, like honey. However, I've grown to actually enjoy it, though strawberry jam has been wayyyy too trite in the past decade... so I don't really like it anymore. Currently, I am obsessed with cherry jam and apricot jam. I'm NOT talking about the "sugar-free" type; those are filled to the brim with aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener. Okay, okay, the FDA thinks that it's safe to ingest, but I disagree. Wikipedia, using this source, states that "A study performed by Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine found that individuals with mood disorders are particularly sensitive to this artificial sweetener, and concluded that its use in this population should be discouraged."
It just so happens that I have mood disorders. Obesity spread from the U.S. The rough figure is that 1/3 of the U.S. is way too chubby. Ironically, though, the U.S. more obsessed with the whole "fat-free", "sugar-free", "carb-free", "cholesterol-free" and "common-sense-free" crap than any other country.
I remember this asinine chain letter that I read ages ago, poking fun at U.S. people by saying "The [insert ethnicity] eat a lot of [insert fatty substance], but they aren't fat". It later concluded that "It turns out that being American is what makes you fat!" Pretty racist, considering that other countries' citizens are also becoming obese due to [American] fast food... Anyway, my grandpa got some strawberry jam from the plane and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD [literally.] It was gelatinous, sans fake-American-"jelly"-flavour, and there were chunks of strawberry in it... too bad it was just a sample size.