Freezing the butter

Okay, because it is the season, I’ll just come out and say it: I am not ready to turn my body into the fat-burning machine I know it can be. It’s not that I don’t know how. Back in the beautiful day, I was taught The Way by extraordinary trainer (now doctor) Claudio Carvalho and together, over 18 months, we turned blobby me into 126 pounds of ass-kicking muscle. I was running three hated miles a day, pumping iron in the afternoons and tearing through the protein like a wildcat. And it felt GOOD! My energy level was insane; I didn’t stroll when I could stride; I was clear headed, sharp eyed and strong. My sleep was deep and restful. Plus, I was having lots of fun. I once took my hated run at 4 a.m. down the Rue St. Germain in Paris and on a crisp fall morning, I ran along the East River in Manhattan. I mountain-biked in Utah. I bought a size 8 Christian Dior wool suit at a tony ladies’ charity shop in Boston — I mean we are talking FUN.

But we are also talking focus and an unbelievable amount of hard work. Keeping track of my daily intake of carbs, protein and fat. Planning meals a week at a time. Making sure I was never without the appropriate thing to eat. Working out every day. Dealing with soreness and injury. Going to bed hungry. Being patient when the scale read 155 for eight solid weeks. Getting up at 6 a.m. to meet Claudio. Giving up wine. Squats, lunges, crunches, tricep pulldowns. The stairmaster. The study. The mind game. The work to stay in what Claudio and I called The No-Bullshit Zone. Forget the excuses, just do what you know you need to do succeed. Whiners not welcome.

The story of how I let all that go is another one entirely, but safe to say, that hardass Kate Cohen would have had little sympathy for me, I think, sitting here in my fat pants, thinking how I should go take a walk, thinking how I would like to fire up Snakeball on the shiny new Playstation 3. But have mercy, Golden Past Kate! I can’t make the jump from zero to lightspeed in one huge heave. I have to go all the way back to the blobby beginning and start slow. Snail slow. To build back the ability — and the desire — to be a hardass again. Today, I can see the No-Bullshit Zone on the map, but it is far over the horizon from here.

But I am not even going to think about hardassery now. I’m thinking about feeling a little more energetic and banking in some good healthy habits that are going to serve me for the next few years. I’m starting with a few simple things I can do now to create some success and see where that takes me. So here they are:

1) Freeze the butter. Yeah, in the days of Golden Past Kate, butter was a carefully measured treat. Never slathered on bread, it was only used in recipes when it was irreplaceable. Nowadays, in the foodie Cohen house, butter gets dropped into the saucepan in great generous hunks. Freezing it makes it harder to use and gives you a little time — while you’re sawing through it with a bread knife — to consider what you’re doing. Also off the refrigerator shelves: heavy cream, whole milk and real mayo. (Replaced by Spectrum Lite Conola Mayo which has great taste, if not so great texture.)

2) Take a walk. I actually started taking a few walks a week in November. It has already made me feel better. The plan: fit in five 30-minuters a week.

3) Cut back on the alcohol. Sigh. My new doctor frowned when I told her that Val and I split a bottle of wine with dinner every night. “You should have at least one glass a day less,” she scolded. I opened my mouth to tell her that 60 million Frenchmen, and me, would disagree, and then thought better of it. But later I started to think about how easy it would be to cut my calorie intake by giving it up completely a few days a week. (Limiting alcohol intake with meals also has a positive effect on your insulin levels and so fat storage, but that is another post for another, more hardass, day.) So, no alcohol Monday through Thursday.

4) Make more recipes from Cooking Light magazine. We are not going to stop enjoying food and cooking in the Cohen household. The culinary arts are a direct link with the beauty of life and, if you are lucky enough to have the skill and good ingredients, you’d be a fool not to enjoy them. But you’d be surprised what a difference small adjustments can make. Cooking Light is filled with delicious and skillfully developed recipes that I want to try no matter what the calorie count.

5) Eat breakfast. I’ve never been a big breakfaster, but I’m just going to get over that. Healthy breakfast eaters have lower cholesterol, more energy and endurance throughout the day and more mental acuity, says WebMD.

6) Make one day a week fish day. This is hard for me, because I don’t like the fishy taste of cooked fish. But Val has started Sashimi Sundays with fresh fish from Pete at the farmers’ market (Today we had Tuna Poke!) and it’s great!

7) Drink more water. Easy for me to do if I just pay attention to it.

Okay that’s what’s on tap for January. I’ll let you know how it goes and if the goodness of this plan leads to other plans and eventually, the return of hardassery.

Bonus: Here’s a link to the food and exercise journal pages and some other resources that I used in the days of Golden Past Kate. Enjoy!