THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 2, 1995 TAG: 9511010058
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DONNA REISS, RESTAURANT CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
``WHY AREN'T you fat?'' people sometimes ask when they learn I'm a restaurant writer. ``Do you really eat all that food?''
Yes, I do. All five courses, and I enjoy every morsel.
Despite the professional eating, I'm a normal-sized person. In fact, I weigh what I did in high school, though it's been somewhat modified by childbearing and time. If I still had my prom dress, it would fit. So would the jeans I wore at 18.
My secrets? Luck. Discipline. And fear.
I cannot eat whatever I want without gaining an ounce. Fat runs in my family. My mother's five sisters ranged from overweight to way overweight. My father's brother was so large, we appended ``Fat Uncle'' to his name. My parents, children of the Great Depression, demonstrated their eventual hard-earned financial stability with nightly groaning boards and 10 or so extra pounds apiece. ``Have another lamb chop,'' Daddy would insist, and we all would obey.
My sisters and I were charter members of the clean-plate club. As a result, I grew from slender childhood to chunky prepubescence. That excess weight, plus unfashionably frizzy curls, made me a self-consciously awkward preteen. Fortunately, a busy lifestyle and a couple of good growth spurts restored me to relative slenderness as a young woman.
Ironically, while I am haunted by my heritage and fear of obesity, I delight in the dining indulgences of restaurant writing.
That's where luck comes in. I've never cared much for sweets. I prefer my coffee black and my tea with lemon, no sugar. I appreciate lush desserts and was once an accomplished amateur patissier, but I usually choose a piece of fruit instead of a slice of cake.
Disciplined eating is my primary weapon against the dreaded family fat genes. Here are some tips I've gathered:
At parties, fill up on raw vegetables without globs of dip. Nibble at small samples of the fancier fare.
At buffets, start with a tiny serving of everything that looks interesting; ignore anything that looks gummy or preportioned, and then return for more of what you really like.
In restaurants, order salad dressings on the side and sprinkle them sparingly over greens. (I almost always leave something on my plate and take home the rest.)
Forget fake fat and no-fat foods. Choose quality over quantity, the fresher the better. (Give me a thin film of mayonnaise, a slim spread of butter on freshly baked bread.)
Choose the healthier of two evils - the homemade blueberry cobbler, for example, over the chocolate mousse sin pie. (I'll have a ripe pear and a little cheese; you go for the creme brulee. And oh, yes, I'll have just a taste of your extravagant dessert. That's 100 calories for me, 800 for you.)
Now, what about all those four- and five-course dinners I sample for restaurant reviews? It's a dream job, after all, dining out with two or three companions, passing our plates around to sample a variety of dishes.
The key: We take our time; we taste, compare and savor. We don't drink a lot of wine. And we leave with stacks of Styrofoam or flocks of foil swans. The next day, we eat a light breakfast and walk or swim or jog an extra mile.
Traveling presents particular problems. And I'll gladly eat a lot of restaurant meals on the road.
The solution? I can almost always find plain wheat toast, a bagel or whole-grain cereal with fruit for breakfast. If the lunch sandwich is overstuffed, I discard half the filling and scrape away most of the mayonnaise. At dinner, a friend and I share an appetizer and dessert and indulge in two dinners. Eating alone, I might order a salad or soup and two appetizers instead of a large main dish.
Fortunately, most airports and large hotel snack bars now sell fruit and bottled water, making travel healthier. Sometimes I ask for vegetarian meals on airplanes or at conferences. If I am traveling long distances, my flight bag includes fruit and pretzels. If I'm changing planes, I walk up and down the concourse for between-flight exercise.
I came to exercise late in life - when I stopped smoking and gained the proverbial 10-plus pounds by substituting peanuts and caramels for my pack-a-day. Fortunately, a neighborhood exercise club was offering an attractive discount to new members, and I signed on.
Between the lunges and plunges of aerobics classes and more sensible eating habits, I returned to my normal weight, hooked on exercise.
Now, I go to aerobics a couple of times a week. When I can, I roller-blade along the boardwalk. On the road, I always have sturdy walking shoes in my suitcase. I've been known to climb up and down hotel stairwells, and powerwalk in shopping centers and parking lots.
Some famous food critics for national publications spend their holidays at a weight-reduction spa. Instead, I indulge in moderate amounts of the finest food and wine I can find and afford.
Sensible eating, moderate exercise that I enjoy, and a positive attitude - just what you read about staying fit - work for me and for many other professional eaters.
But we're no longer members of the clean-plate club. MEMO: Donna Reiss is restaurant critic for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB