Eat small meals. 5 times per day.

When I joined a gym last summer I was given a personal training session and a personal nutrition evaluation as part of my startup fee. The nutritionist had me track everything I ate one day along with the times that I ate them. My list looked a little bit like this:

7:00 am – 20 oz coffee
1:30 pm – a peppermint Luna bar
5:30 pm – four slices of pepperoni pizza, two Sam Adams Pilsners
7:00 pm – a slice of birthday cake. A corner piece, for optimum frosting ratio.

The nutritionist told me that this simply would not do. First, this diet is void of nutritional value, and secondly, the carb-loading at the end of the day goes straight on my ass. Breakfast, she said, was essential. Then just eat about 300 calories 4 times per day. Seems simple enough.

So I tried it, and it’s difficult. You’re not really hungry, but you’re never really full either. And usually 300 calories does not look like a meal. How about a quarter-cup of granola and a glass of milk? It looks very small. What about a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich? Sure, but you only get one slice of bread. Messy. But it worked, and it helped go from 170 to 150. At one point along the way I can distinctly remember realizing – slowly, and painfully – that “I can never eat like that again.”

And it’s true. I can’t eat like the other kids if I want this to work. I can’t eat four slices of pizza, and I can’t eat cake every day even though I really like cake. But it’s ok – I’ve discovered Bambino pizzas from Trader Joe’s.

They’re only 290 calories and oh so delicious. Even if you burn them.

John Basedow told me I’m bad

This is on my fridge right now. I bought two of the Fitness Made Simple DVDs from the infomercial on TV a few years ago, and this lovely 9 x ll glossy was a free gift with my order. I gave John a voice and he’s been taped to my fridge ever since.

John told me that I’m bad today. He says that I need to start exercising if I want this to go anywhere, preferably with his DVDs. And I agree. I actually have four John Basedow titles: The awesome hour, six pack abs, the fat burning workout and another one that I can’t remember. They’re pretty good. The exercises are real and aren’t gimmicky, and John Basedow seems like a very driven guy. I did notice that he’s a lot nicer to us fatties on the fat burning workout DVD than he is on the awesome hour – which is clearly geared toward men. And they shot the awesome hour it what appears to be John’s house, which is amazingly 80s. I’m talking pink carpeting, seashell details, glass dolphins – the works. And there’s John Basedow, working out on some sort of staircase landing with two ornamental dogs running around. Inspiring.

But the workouts are solid, and I imagine that if you did them religiously, or even frequently, you’d be successful.