The sins and penance of dieting

First to clarify, does the fact that I'm being extra judicious about what I eat and drink these days mean I'm officially dieting?

To diet means to restrict your food intake (or your intake of particular foods).

So, yeah, I guess I am dieting.

I just wanted to be clear about that because I've never considered myself a dieter, per se. I've tried to be conscious about the things I eat and drink, even a little careful (very little salt, for example), but not a dieter in the classic sense.

But I am officially dieting because I'm making a concerted effort to lose weight: 20 pounds, if I can, 15 as a compromise if I can't.

So far, I've lost 10.

The goal is to keep my calorie intake to 1,600 calories or less per day, accompanied at least five days a week by a variety of exercise -- running, swim, Xtrainer, stationery bicycle, stretching, core muscle exercises, and some weights.

My diet plan is based on the recommendations in the "Flat Belly Diet! For Men," a book that's had some commercial success. I've written about this in the past: It attracted me because it has some practical advice -- and decent recipes that can make you feel full without overburdening the caloric intake.

The flat belly diet emphasis the use of MUFAs – mono unsaturated fatty acids in food that will make you feel full but that will also help reduce the roundness of that gut.

And it's truly been an act of faith.

Dieting is like being a Catholic: When I sin, I have to do penance.

If I stray from the diet, I have to make up for it. The other night, I had dinner with my dear friend Ken and had a beer. Now, beer isn't on the diet, not at 120 calories a pop, not when I'm trying to get rid of a beer belly. So the next day in the pool it was a few extra laps to compensate.

My wife Jane and I are traveling this weekend to see some college hockey in Albany, N.Y. There will be eating and drinking outside of the diet parameters. But I'm not going to fuss and fret too much if when I go back to the gym on Monday and find I've crept up a couple of pounds.

Maybe I lose one little battle but I'm still winning the war.

I'm hungry right now.

But I can't give into the temptation of the past -- eating chips out of a bag with a jar of salsa. Or a high stack of salty crackers with cheese. Or both.

I'll have a palm full of MUFA almonds. Or an apple.

I'm trying to be the saint in this battle of the bulge. Not the sinner.

It's quite a role reversal.

Cooking as a stress reliever

It's nice to know that there's a medical basis for I've always sensed -- cooking is a great stress reducer.

The online version of the AARP Bulletin had a story recently that said cooking actually is closer to an anti-depressant than people realize; cooking triggers beneficial physiological responses in the body.

The Bulletin cited Dr. Bruce Rabin, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Healthy Lifestyle Program.

Rabin says cooking "reduces the concentration of hormones that go up with stress." Cooking forms a feeling of general well-being knowing "we're cooking for others and are optimistic of a good result."

He also notes that the rhythm of a cook and he or she chops and prepares can be a form of meditation.

I started to cook by need at the time of my separation/divorce some 14 years ago. And I've been in the kitchen ever since.

It's always been a way for me to transition from one part of the day to the next -- from day to evening, from work to home, from crazy to not so crazy. I used it as a transition from the craziness of my job. I use it today as a transition from the somewhat less craziness of my semi-retirement.

There is indeed something therapeutic about creating a singular meal from the various parts that are in the refrigerator or pantry or cupboards.

It's a small form of making order from chaos -- I might not be able to do that in the big world, but I can do it in the small world of my kitchen.

It's developed to the point where I know blog at Eats@Home about the recipes I've discovered.

I don't mind the expectation that I put on myself to produce a good meal. High expectations can themselves be a stress inducer, but I just go through the rhythm of what I do and it usually comes out all right.

Of course, nothing is absolute.

I tried a corned beef cabbage recipe for St. Patrick's Day (in honor of wife Jane's Irishness) that tested my patience and ultimately was a stress producer as opposed to a stress reliever.

The dinner that should have been done at 7 p.m. wasn't done ultimately until 8:30 p.m. We had to resort to an emergency meal out of the freezer and we had pizza as our traditional Irish meal.

You can't win 'em all in the kitchen.

But mostly cooking has been a big welcome dose of Prozac for me and my psyche.

My favorite Winter Olympics moment

I enjoyed the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

There were parts that annoyed me, particularly the tape delay broadcast of events that could have been aired live, especially during the weekends.

But the good outweighed the bad.

I'm a skier, a former racer, so I really enjoyed the coverage of Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn and the rest of the ski racers.

In fact, I'd like to think I identified more with the ski racers than anyone else who competed in the Vancouver games. I had fantasized for a long time as a kid that one day I'd be standing in the start house of an Olympic ski race.

But it's curious what age will do to you.

Instead of identifying with the Bode or Vonn I took a real liking to snowboarder Kelly Clark.

And it was because she sang.

If you watched the coverage of the women's snowboarding halfpipe competition then you caught Clark singing out load to the music on her iPod before she dropped into the halfpipe for her run. The viewing audience couldn't hear her iPod tunes, of course, all we could hear was Kelly blithely singing along ... and she was wonderfully awful.

It was snowboarding and karaoke rolled into a single event.

She can't carry a tune to save her life, but it was so enjoyable to watch her get into her competitive mode by singing away to the music we couldn't hear.

I liked this moment a lot because I could identify with Kelly.

The reality is that I'm more like Kelly, singing along to my iPod at moments that might be inappropriate, than I am like Bode hurtling down a mountain at 60-plus miles an hour.

My days of complete abandon on skis are long gone (more like cautious abandon these days), but my days of abandon singing along with my iPod are not ... far from it, in fact.

I listen to my iPod while I work out at the gym and, like Kelly, when I get into the zone of what I'm doing I tend to sing along to my music. Most times I'll catch myself, realize I'm amongst a group of people, and look around to see if anyone's noticing. Usually, most everyone else is locked into their own music with their own ear buds, they're just not singing karaoke like I am.

But the momentary embarrassment passes, and I'll continue my reps and my 4/4 beat with Green Day or The Who or Mark Knopfler or whoever.

At least I can carry a tune, at least I think I sound pretty good as I belt out "Dead Flowers" along with the Rolling Stones.