World Food pictures, Biggest Loser, and food forgetfulness

Time, the media company, has an online series on food around the world, diet, appetite and such related topics that I read through my lunch break. Instead of eating, I read about eating/food etc. And nibbled on prunes. It's a long story, don't ask.

Anyway, the photo series on what the world eats is interesting. 15 families around the world are photographed with their weekly food expenditure. They also share what their favorite foods are or a family recipe (not in much detail, just "potato with cabbage" or "pizza"). Made me think about what foods would be photographed if I had to share those details: tofu, lots of mineral water, soy milk, chicken soup, rice, eggs, cheese, bread, roast chicken, pears, oranges, grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, a mixed salad of things, nuts, prunes (especially these days), miso soup mix, and lots of varying sweets. Perhaps what would be more illuminating is a photo of my refrigerator at any given time, although the stack of forgotten moldy cheese is probably not something I want to share.

One of the articles included along with the photo essay is an article about the Biggest Loser TV show. Men and women fight for the right to lose the most amount of weight through the help of trainers and nutritionists and motivational speakers. They get eliminated each week and get more than snarky because these days, rudeness equals good TV. At work, we had our mini-version of Biggest Loser, but it was clear who would win, as one colleague did her version of the South Beach Diet and lost 20 lbs, the first 14 in the first 2 weeks of our trial period (12 weeks). I lost about 6 lbs during this period, but without any direction whatsoever. I wasn't going to the gym, I attempted to eat less, but was tempted at every turn with dinners and food outings galore. I'm surprised I even lost 6 lbs, probably mostly water weight.

However, what the article about the Biggest loser points out is the difficulty in maintaining the lost weight. No duh. Everyone who has ever been on a diet knows that it's the maintenance that makes it difficult. The three winners of the show over the last few years have had varying degrees of difficulty keeping the weight off. Faced with reality, and its accompanying temptations, the contestants easily slip back into old habits or have to make sacrifices like exercising 4 hours a day to maintain their weight loss. Ugh.

At last Saturday's market, my first purchase went to buying 6 bottles of the vegetable fruit juices near my flower/plant vendor Dahlia. I like the way they make the juices (celery, watercress, cucumber, beetroot, etc) taste healthy without passing on taste. I have used the juice in the past to do a liquid day diet. Not quite a fast, more just to get some fiber and enough vegetables in my system. I paid for it, and told the seller I'd come back for it. Last night, I was watching Martha Stewart talk about juicers and juice extractors when a light went off in my head "I forgot my danged juices!!!!!"