They’re a Bunch of Losers, and Proud of It

The things you hear when you’ve convinced your co-workers to go on a diet for two weeks:

“You’re evil.”

“I’m getting a Whopper.”

“Are you supposed to feel light-headed?”

“I miss Tim Hortons.”

No one said it was going to be easy. But it was successful.

As described in an article about three weeks ago, my three colleagues and I at the Buffalo News Northtowns Bureau went on Herman Tarnower’s Scarsdale Diet for two weeks. We managed to drop a combined 52 pounds.

People say we appear thinner. We know that we are trying on pants from our past and buttoning them with ease.

More shocking is that in the days immediately following the end of the diet, there was no run on pastry hearts or brownies; instead, people were talking about the number of calories in a doughnut and the folly of eating an entire bag of chips in one sitting.

This is the first step in what we all hope will be a lifestyle change. Each of us had our reasons for wanting to drop some weight quickly, but we all shared a desire to make this the kickstart we needed.

Bruce Andriatch, Bureau Chief: The last time I saw a weight on my bathroom scale that started with the number 1, my age started with the number 2. Through a series of modest lifestyle changes over the years, I had managed to get within 14 pounds of my goal weight of “anything under 200,” but no closer.

Happily, I made it to 199 on the last day of the diet. (My electronic scale actually flipped between 199 and 200, but seeing 199 even briefly was good enough for me.)

I was not surprised. I’ve tried the diet a couple of other times and — if you stick to its dictatorial regimen — it works.

It is promoted as offering the chance to lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days. I knew I wasn’t trying to lose that much necessarily, so I played a little fast and loose with the requirements. Twice I went to Wendy’s and had a grilled chicken sandwich, which was only slightly different from the lunch recommendation of chicken and a combination salad. Mostly though, I just stuck to it.

The truly difficult part of this two-week period was avoiding candy and doughnuts, the two main staples of the News Northtowns Bureau diet. But the fact that three colleagues were taking part, and two others were alternating between cheering us on and questioning our mental health, kept the bad food at arm’s length.

I have had a couple of doughnuts since the diet ended – partly because I subsequently embarked on a Lenten sacrifice of all sweets – but my weight has been holding steady.

Next comes a getting-to-know-you phase with the muscles that have atrophied for years. I hope they remember me.

Harold McNeil, reporter who covers Lancaster, Williamsville and Amherst: Promoters of this diet say it’s the combination of foods you’re restricted to that leads to rapid weight loss. Truth is, you consume very little food on this diet. In fact, I’m sure there are more calories in that last sentence than I was allowed on the Scarsdale Diet.

It’s all about deprivation: a half grapefruit with dry toast and black coffee every morning, maybe another slice of bread later in the day, cheese once a week, fruit (not counting the grapefruit) only twice a week, and copious veggies.

The problem is, I’m not sated by raw, ungarnished vegetables. There’s plenty of meat for dinner – two lean pork chops or sirloin steak some nights. Dinner was the only time I experienced a full stomach. Starving all day and capping it off with a heavy meal may seem counterintuitive but, amazingly, at the end of the two weeks I shed 15 pounds off my 6-foot frame.

I’m now down to 185 and plan to lose about 10 pounds more, but slowly this time by eating less and exercising more. I certainly learned how to eat less on this diet.

Surprisingly, I didn’t cheat much, and there’s no snacking allowed. Three days in, I scoured the aisles of my local Walgreens for dietetic candy and spied a low-calorie chocolate bar with soy crips, brought it home and ate only half. A week later I munched a handful of low-calorie potato chips. I refused to eat the cottage cheese. Not even the late Dr. Tarnower himself could make me do it.

Emma Sapong, reporter who covers the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island: When I got hungry, I ate. I suffered only briefly from hunger pangs during the two-week span of my first diet. I ate the skimpy daily offerings and then I ate a little bit more. You can call it cheating, but I called it being satisfied. There was something terribly inhumane and unnatural about starving; it made me irritable and restless.

I figured I had room to stray from the plan since it promised up to 20 pounds weight loss and I only wanted to shed 9.

Extra slices of bread and cheese, a handful of dry roasted peanuts supplied by an empathetic non-dieting co-worker, cold cuts and bowls of my favorite cereal were all consumed in moderation when I was down and out and the hunger threatened to suck the life out of me. After the first week of the diet, I visited my mother, and I did everything in my power to not partake of her collard greens stew and rice, but I was too weak (and hungry) to pass it up. So I ate that, too.

My backsliding was reasonable, though; I snacked on razor-thin slices of low-fat cold cuts or a small portions of cereal with soy milk. And to undercut my cheating, I exercised – I played hours of racquetball and tennis a couple of times during the diet. In the end, I lost 11 pounds, enabling me to finally meet and surpass my goal of 160.

My modified version of the Scarsdale Diet was an enlightening and healthy experience, and I didn’t just see its benefits in my waistline. At night, I slept more peacefully. And for those two weeks, I wasn’t bothered by my recurring allergies and sinus symptoms.

Mary Pasciak, reporter who covers suburban schools: This was the first time I’d ever been on a diet.

Deprivation works in a weird way, I learned. The past two weeks completely brainwashed me, redefining “good food.”

I have never before had as pathetic a motivation to get out of bed as I did on Day 2, after 24 hours without carbohydrates. The mere thought of a toasted piece of protein bread – plain, no butter, no jam – was enough to get me sprinting to the kitchen.

I found myself looking forward to the three days each week that I was allowed to eat pecans – all of six halves at one sitting.

My perseverance through that first week was rewarded on Day 7, when I got to have a entire tablespoon of low-fat sour cream with my potato.

Sure, I grew proud of my self-control. But desperate for pasta. Butter. A couple of M&Ms. I started wondering whether this foray into a parallel universe was worth the trouble.

And then, around Day 8, something wonderful happened: I needed to cinch my belt in an extra notch. Who knew that belts could be functional as well as decorative?

By the end of the two weeks, I had dropped 12 pounds. I was down to 138, low enough to make two weeks without chocolate seem worthwhile.

Only one true test remained.

I trudged up to the attic and dragged out all the boxes of clothes that I’d, let’s say, outgrown in the past few years. And it was like Christmas all over again.