The All-the-Bacon-You-Can-Eat Diet

If you have formed the habit of checking on every new diet that comes along, you will find that, mercifully, they all blur together, leaving you with only one definite piece of information: french-fried potatoes are out.
-Jean Kerr

When I was in my twenties, I decided I needed to lose some weight, and so I joined Weight Watchers, which prescribes a healthy eating plan consisting of a balance of different foods, with reinforcement from weekly weigh-ins and meetings. If you follow the plan, it really works. I reached my goal weight in a little over a year and I learned some things about food that I never forgot – e.g. corn and potatoes are nutritionally the equivalent of bread, and bacon is a fat exchange. Stuff like that.

Several diets and many pounds lost and gained later, I just relaxed into being who I was at the weight that I was, and largely forgot about the fact that I was bigger than average and that it was supposed to interfere with every aspect of my existence. I gave up on weight loss diets entirely.

Even when I was no longer concerned about my weight, I remained interested in my health. I would, on and off, try to make healthier eating choices and exercise on a regular basis. None of this had any measurable effect on my only “real” health issues, my high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels, both conditions that run in my family. I can eat healthier, drastically reduce sodium, exercise regularly, and even lose weight without a positive effect on my blood pressure. The only thing that controls my blood pressure is daily medication.

Nonetheless, cockeyed optimist that I am, when my blood tests at the doctor’s revealed that I had very slightly elevated blood sugar and hemoglobin A 1 c levels, I decided to be proactive. I was going to try to avoid developing full-blown type 2 diabetes (another condition that runs in the family) by - you guessed it- going on a diet.

Okay, this time it would mean a low carbohydrate diet, a whole new dietary adventure for me. See, it’s not just about sugar. It also involves limiting all starches, which turn into sugar in your body. So, you have to limit sugar, potatoes, bread, and fruit. I decided to follow the American Diabetic Association’s recommendations for the number of carbs to consume in a day.

This diet hasn’t been that hard to follow. I am just limiting carbs, not eliminating them. I can have the sandwich or the fries, just not both. I can even have my cake (and eat it too!), if I skip the sandwich and the fries, choosing an entrée with a salad or vegetable instead. This has made me a little like Sally in “When Harry Met Sally” when ordering in a restaurant. “I’d like the omelette, but I don’t want any potatoes, and I’d like an English muffin in place of the toast.”

Limiting carbs has meant increasing my protein - I mean you have to eat something, right? I find myself choosing the eggs over the pastries for breakfast. If I crave a nosh and I can’t have a carb, I’ll have a piece of string cheese.

One day it dawned on me - I was eating bacon. I could, in fact, have all the bacon I wanted. Bacon was no longer just a strip of fat to be severely limited in my diet. It was now NOT A CARB! I can stock bacon to munch on as a snack, right next to the string cheese, if I so choose. I can also eat ham, and steak, and eggs. And, amazingly and remarkably, despite my increased bacon consumption, I was losing weight. Bacon and weight loss? Maybe I was onto something here.

I worried that there would be a down side. Would my cholesterol skyrocket? I mean, I was eating eggs and cheese and bacon in ways I hadn’t in years.

I returned to the doctor for my six month checkup. I had lost 15 pounds. My blood pressure had dropped lower than I ever remember it being at the doctor’s office (in 18 years). My overall cholesterol had decreased, my bad cholesterol was down and my good cholesterol up. How was my blood sugar, and my hemoglobin levels, you ask? The reason I did all this to begin with? My blood sugar had gone down a few points, but was still borderline high, and my hemoglobin was essentially the same.

Well, you can’t have everything. Pass the bacon, please and hold the toast!

The Bridges of Washington County

Everyone was all a-buzz was about “The Bridges of Madison County.” I was curious to see what all the fuss was about, so I decided to check it out of my local library, which was a tiny, one-room library serving two small communities in Washington County, PA, where I was living at the time. There was a 22-person waiting list. “Oh, we don’t have any copies of that on the shelf right now,” the clerk told me, “and we won’t for a long time.”

There was a copy of the book not two feet from me on a return cart, but I assumed out loud that it would be going to the next person on the list. The clerk suddenly became very serious. “Oh, you don’t want that one,” she said, with a clear disdain as though the book were contaminated in some way, “that’s a rental copy.”

Rental copy? This was a new one to me. I asked her about the rental rate. “Ten cents a day,” she said, shaking her head. I looked at the book. It was a very small book- not too much thicker than a dime itself. It was Friday, I had the whole weekend ahead of me, and I was a pretty fast reader. How long could it take? I decided to splurge, and checked out the book.

I took the book home and settled down with it after dinner. I read it in one sitting, finishing it in a couple of hours. I returned it to the library the next morning, paid my dime, and went on my way. Let me tell you, the book and I were both worth it. It was a perfect little romance novel.

SPOILER ALERT – do not read further if you’ve not read the book and don’t want to know how it turns out. I should tell you that actually reading the book shouldn’t take much longer than reading the rest of this blog.

You see, Robert Kincaid, a loner photographer for National Geographic is on assignment to photograph the covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa, when he gets lost, and happens upon Francesca, a lonely Italian housewife, lounging on the porch of her farmhouse. She is bored because her husband and children happen to be away at the State Fair for the weekend. Robert stops to ask directions, and, well, one thing leads to another, and they end up having a deep, meaningful affair and a lot of sex for the rest of the weekend. Ultimately Francesca knows that she cannot betray and destroy her family and sadly bids farewell to Robert, who moves on. How romantic, how sad, how noble!

My sister had also read the book, and she and I were talking one day about the plausibility of the story. Forget the moral considerations of their love affair. They are fictional characters in a romance novel – certainly we can’t hold them to the same standards as real people. However, what were the chances that Robert would happen upon Francesca in the first place?

I insisted that it could happen in real life – heck, it could happen to anyone. You know, some photographer could get lost while trying to find the 21 covered bridges in Washington County- this was before all those computerized mapping services and GPS. I had been lost in Washington County a few times myself since moving there some years earlier. While you’d never catch my family showing their livestock at the State Fair (we didn’t have any livestock, unless you counted our little terrier mutt, Zero) they could have been away for the weekend at a Yes concert or something. Maybe I wasn’t a housewife but I was of Italian descent. I was interrupted by my sister’s laughter. “You would never be hanging out on your front porch – you never spend anytime outside,” she said. Okay, she had me there.

We weren’t done with Robert and Francesca yet. We set about casting the movie. She suggested Isabella Rossellini as Francesca, and I knew that Kris Kristofferson would be a great Robert Kincaid. Perfect- ideal casting!! When the time came, obviously Isabella and Kris weren’t available because they cast Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood instead. I did see the movie when it was broadcast on network TV. From 8 pm to 11 pm one Sunday night. Three hours?? Even with commercials added, that was a stretch. Not that much happened in the book, really. It felt like they were playing Robert and Francesca’s love affair out in real time. I thought it would never end. It actually took me longer to watch the movie than it had taken me to read the book.

In case this whetted your appetite for covered bridges, the 39th Annual Covered Bridge Festival in Washington and Greene Counties will be held September 19 and 20, 2009. For more information and maybe even directions, check out the website, http://visitwashingtoncountypa.com/outdoor.php?select=washbridgefest.

Gee! 20 Reasons to Avoid the G-20 Summit

Pittsburgh is a fine city – a great place to live and work. Most of us who grew up in Pittsburgh or have chosen it as our home realize this. We are also pretty sure that no one else knows how special it is here- that no one appreciates us, as it were. We swell with pride when some magazine deems our city a nice place to live, and celebrate our native sons and daughters who make it big. When some actress filming a movie here says something bad about Pittsburgh, we are outraged and defensive, perhaps wondering why we have to prove ourselves yet again.

So, I can imagine the excitement of our city officials when approached about hosting the G-20 Summit this September. They must have been over the moon at the thought of the President and leaders from around the world coming here- finally, the world would see how great Pittsburgh is! “Pittsburgh Welcomes the World!” is the Summit slogan being touted by the local news media.

My first thought was that this would be a great opportunity for the city. My second thought was- wait a minute, they’re going to be meeting downtown, at the Convention Center? Like any jaded Downtown worker, I dread all events that take place downtown on a weekday. It doesn’t it really matter what it is. A Steeler or Penguin victory parade, Light Up Night, a movie being filmed in Market Square, a Pirate game. They all just tie up traffic, make finding a parking spot more difficult, and add to the daily aggravation.

Still, I thought, this was something special. It would be exciting and kind of fun, like when “Kill Point” was filming a couple of blocks away from my office. Even I showed up when Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill spoke at Market Square during the primaries- I usually hole up in my office when there’s too much excitement going on in the streets. I appreciated that we average worker bees would not be able to get anywhere near the dignitaries. It would still be nice to part of the excitement.

Little did I know the extent of the security being put into place for the G-20 Summit. Pittsburgh may be welcoming the world, but in the process they are shunning those of us who live and work here. The details are sketchy and sporadic, presumably because the Secret Service likes to keep their plans, you know, secret.

We’ve heard all kinds of things, but the information can and does change at any time. First we heard that several blocks around the convention center would be shut off to both vehicular and foot traffic, but now they say it will be a smaller area and only vehicles will be prohibited. Pedestrians will be allowed in but will have to pass through security checkpoints, and no one will be allowed to bring weapons or explosives into the restricted area. This is certainly an excellent idea, one I applaud. However, does this mean they will be able to carry their weapons or explosives back into the rest of the city? Could they at least confiscate the explosives? Just a thought.

Even if you don’t need to go to the immediate area around the convention center, getting to and from work will still be problematic. There are already several streets Downtown closed for construction. Reportedly the T will not be coming into town, nor will most of the buses. Oh, and the Pittsburgh Parking Authority will allegedly be closing its garages downtown. So, essentially if you can park across a bridge and walk into town, you might be okay. Mail delivery in the city will be restricted for the duration of the event, and no packages will be delivered during that time.

The protesters are a lot harder to control, unfortunately. They’re coming from all over the place, and demanding their rights to assemble, and they want to pitch tents in Point State Park. There are rumors that some of these protesters have “targeted” some local companies. As we just passed the 8th anniversary of 9/11, one can only ponder what that could possibly mean.

All these factors are succeeding in scaring everyday Pittsburgh citizens away from our workplaces in the city. Many of us are staying home for two or three days while the Summit inhabits the city. We are working from home, or taking vacation time, and some have decided that this might just be the perfect time to leave town.

I feel like a parent being forced to leave town for the weekend while the teenagers are home alone. You just hold your breath and hope that if the party gets too wild that they clean up after themselves and you find the place in one piece when you get back.

And the Bride Wore Burgundy

It was all decided. We were just a couple of middle-aged kids in love, and we were getting married. The courtship wasn’t your typical affair- oh, it was an affair alright, there just wasn’t anything typical about it- and we knew early on the wedding was going to be, shall we say, non-traditional. From the self-written interfaith ceremony, to my 18-year-old son acting as Man of Honor, to the chocolate-on-chocolate wedding cake, everything about our wedding was wonderfully unique and special and totally “us.”

My personal contribution to the uniqueness of our wedding was my choice of attire. One day it occurred to me. I knew what I wanted in a wedding dress. I turned to my fiancé, and said with clear conviction, “I want the dress to be red.”

“Okay,” responded my fiancé, as casually as though I had said I wanted chicken for dinner. Of course, this was the guy who loved me for who I was and was determined to make all my dreams come true, even if it meant painting the bedroom red (which he had already done, before I moved in).

Nonetheless, I expected resistance from the masses (i.e. family and friends), but no one seemed to care what I wore to my wedding. Boy, this was a lot different than my first wedding, when I was in my 20’s, and everyone had all kinds of opinions about everything.

Then I embarked upon the mind bogglingly difficult task of finding my wedding dress. Granted, I had some issues, beyond the fact that the dress had to be red (or maroon, or burgundy or wine – something in the red family). I wanted something somewhat formal. I wanted sleeves on my dress, considering that we were getting married in November. To complicate things further I was a plus size woman in my 40’s, and I was on a tight budget.

I know for a fact that plus size people marry and are in weddings all the time, but you wouldn’t know it when you enter the formidable portals of a bridal shop, where I found myself looking at mother-of-the-bride and bridesmaid dresses. Rhiannon, a young saleslady at one local wedding retailer, was actually very helpful. She produced a really pretty, interesting long fitted suit that came in a Cranberry color that… was not made in my size. Why, I wondered? Did the creators of the dress conclude that no large woman should or would choose to wear a fitted dress?

I saw a beautiful bridesmaid's gown that was satin, a-line and trimmed in fur, but in red with white fur I was afraid I would evoke images of Mrs. Santa Claus. I would have felt better if I could have tried it on but, as Rhiannon expected, no store stocked in my size. That's the other thing. Because they rarely carried samples in my size, I was expected to take it on faith that I might look okay in a dress and just order it. Are you kidding me? My wedding dress? I don’t think so.

I was beginning to despair. My fiancé assured me that I would look wonderful to him in anything, even a gunny sack, but I didn’t really want to wear a gunny sack to my wedding, even if it were red, fitted and had long sleeves.

A co-worker knew of a bridal place that carried a nice selection of discounted plus size bridal dresses, but she couldn’t remember the name of the store and wasn’t sure if it was in Steubenville (Ohio) or Wheeling (West Virginia). And there was another place she knew of in Sharon, PA that carried plus size discounted merchandise and that specialized in evening wear. Well, if a field trip is what it took…but I thought it ironic that I lived in Pittsburgh, the biggest metropolitan area in western Pennsylvania, and I might have to travel to Sharon or out of state to get a formal red dress to wear at my wedding.

I decided to go downtown to try the department stores – Kaufman’s and Lord and Taylor’s. And Saks?, asked my fiancé. Well, I just laughed at the thought of Saks. Did I mention we were on a tight budget? I doubted that Saks would have plus sizes, and was sure that anything I did find there would be far too expensive. My trips to other department stores failed to produce a dress. Oh, there was a quite stunning red evening dress at L & T that might have been appropriate if the evening in question was being spent at, say, the Moulin Rouge, but I certainly didn’t want to wear it to my wedding. My fiancé told me to humor him, and we headed for Saks.

When we entered “Salon Z,” (yes, there WAS a plus size section of the store), we turned to the left and there it was. An entire wall of what was my ultimately perfect wedding dress. It was exactly what I had in mind. It was a floor-length burgundy satin dress with a fitted waist, sleeves, and a V-shaped neckline. Better yet, the first dress I tried on, in my standard size, was a little too big, so I had to go down a size. When I walked out of the dressing room, my fiancé teared up at the sight of me. The piéce de resistence? It was on sale. The price of the dress was about a 60% markdown from the original price, but an additional “surprise” discount at the register brought the price to about one-third the original price, affordable for even the tightest budget.

I married my wonderful husband wearing my beautiful burgundy wedding gown on November 29, 2003, almost six years ago. In the end, it turned out that finding the right dress was like finding the right man – it took a long time and some heartache along the way, but when I did they were both the perfect fit for me.