So I began this blog of my travels in the U.S. in 2015 with a short trip to New England in February not expecting at the time that I'd be spending more than half of the year traveling in Europe, first two and a half months in Spain and Portugal in the spring, then almost two months in the British Isles over the summer after June back in New Jersey, finishing up with two months in the Balkan and northern Italy in the autumn months. All that travel and restaurant food made me fat!

I got back to the U .S in late October and set out to get back in shape and shed all that Eurofat I put on while on the road. In addition to many hours at the gym, I’m also eating skinny to that end. So I’ve decided to do a blog entry about my skinny food while staying at my mother’s home in New Jersey between trips.

What is skinny food? Well, we heard for decades that fat was bad for us. In more recent times we heard it’s not the fat, it’s the carbohydrates. Low-carb diets were suddenly in vogue. Then we heard that some fats, those that are mostly monosaturated like olive oil, canola oil, nuts, and avocados are actually good for us. When I was a kid I always learned that sugar was very bad. After a period of time when sweets weren’t seen as quite so evil, they’re now on the dietary shit list again, sugar supposedly having biochemistry-altering capacity and addictive qualities. So what’s a chubby dude who wants to lose weight supposed to do?

Well, it really isn’t rocket science . For quite a few years I’ve been estimating my daily calorie intake and expenditure through exercise beyond normal daily movement. I’ve calculated my equilibrium to be between 2,900 and 3,000 calories, so I have to keep the balance (calories consumed – calories burned in exercise) significantly below that to "de-chub" as I call it. Since most calories in the diet come from fat and starch (and alcohol if you like to have a few beers or some wine), the answer is to consume rather little of those. Fat and simple carbohydrates are also digested quickly, so if you eat a lot of them you not only get a lot of calories, you also feel hungry to want to consume more of them after a short period of time.

So I’m concentrating on foods heavy in protein and fiber, essentially a lot of lean meat, nonfat dairy products, vegetables, and smaller amounts of fruit and grains with complex carbohydrates. But isn’t that food boring? No, not really. It can be very flavorful and satisfying .

After having a slice of pizza for lunch the day after I returned from Europe, I went to the grocery store to stock up on “skinny food” ingredients and managed to go 38 consecutive days without consuming any food outside the home except for a Starbucks coffee (with skim milk) or two and a few free sample tastes at grocery stores. I managed to lose twelve pounds in less than six weeks. After that I got a little more relaxed with both diet and exercise, ate out a few times, went away, and then the holiday season came along. By the second week of January, though, I had lost another six pounds over six weeks for a total of about 18 pounds in less than three months.

I find myself watching many cooking shows on TV when I’m in New Jersey, less because I want to than because they are what my mother’s caregiver usually has on for my mother to listen to, shows like “Chopped” and celebrity chefs like Ina Garten, Giada, Bobby Flay, and “The Pioneer Woman” . It’s no wonder Americans are so fat if they’re getting their cooking lessons from these people – so much butter, so much cream, so much sugar, so much bacon!

Over nearly three months I used only a minimal amount of olive oil for sautéing and added no other fats. I didn’t eat anything deep-fried or use cheese or cream in any of the dishes I made. I made my own sauces to avoid all the added sugar in many store-bought sauces. My protein sources were chicken and turkey breast, lean beef and pork tenderloin, all kinds of fish and seafood, skim milk, and nonfat cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, especially important since I was doing some weightlifting at the gym.

Part of continued motivation for trimming down is that in mid-November I decided to book some adventure-oriented tours in Central America starting in January. The first in Guatemala involves climbing seven of the country’s volcanoes. My experience with trekking in the past is that I tend to be a slowpoke on the trail because of being a little overweight. That wasn’t too much of an issue on my treks in Nepal in 2014 when I was hiking alone. It’s a different story, though, when you’re in a group and feel like you have to keep the pace of fitter people or lag behind and hold everyone in the group back. That can be complete misery for everyone.

OK, I now feel ready to tackle the highest mountains in Central America!