I’ve recently had to go on an extremely low-fat diet for health reasons. In three weeks, I’ve gone from about 140 lbs to 123 as of this morning.
I’ll tell you what – it’s not the fact that I’m not eating fat – it’s the fact that I’m not eating. I mean, when you have to count every single gram of fat, you learn there are a ton of foods in the average American diet (I consider myself an average American in terms of eating habits) that contain high levels of fat.
A single slice of Provolone cheese has six grams of fat. A tablespoon of olive oil has 11–14. Four ounces of meat can have 25–30 grams of fat. You can hardly find normal American food that doesn’t contain some form of fat.
So, when I’m out with my family, my son and husband stop through Mickey D’s for the odd $2 Happy Meal, I go without until I can get home and have a spinach and tomato salad with some fat-free dressing and maybe a little tuna. There’s a world of difference between the calorie content of a cheeseburger, fries, and apple juice, and two cups of greens, a tomato, and a tin of tuna fish washed down with some Coke Zero.
The down side is, the salad doesn’t come with a Han Solo action figure.