G.P. 10 Kingsley Amis’ Ten General Principles
Eating fattens you
Welcome back to the last part of a series on the general principles Kingsley Amis lists in his excellent book, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis.
In the book, he lists ten general principles, which can be summarized:
For drinks accompanied by fruit or vegetables, try adding juice
Eating fattens you
To refresh yourself on past principles, feel free to follow the links above to previous entries.
Thanks for joining Kingsley and me over the past few months for this fun dive into one of my favorite cocktail books.
Before I jump into the final G.P. I should mention I am not a doctor, a nutritionist, or a physician of any kind. I just like the drink. 🍸🙌
Twenty-three, skidoo!
G.P. 10:
Eating fattens you.
At the start of the year, I stood on the bathroom scale and saw a number I had never seen before. I knew after a year of COVID comfort meals and lots of couch time and, of course, the fact that I am not a teenage metabolism maniac anymore, I had to change something if I wanted to get back to a healthier weight. The easy option was to cut out the booze.
Ha.
So I had to find another solution.
Kingsley mentions that "THE FIRST, INDEED the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree." Also, "it should be simple: no charts, tables, menus, recipes."
I agree, but needed to do some math first before ditching the charts and tables.
I quickly found out that weight is lost in the kitchen, not in the gym, or for me, the basement. The big secret is simply to expend more calories from your body than you consume—this is harder than it sounds while keeping your alcohol intake at a Kingsley Amis approved amount.
So before I got too far in, I added up what I eat and drink daily. I was surprised to find that most simple cocktails like the Manhattan, Martini, and Old Fashioned (not counting the cherry) sit around 150-170 Cal based on a 60 ml or 2-ounce base spirit pour of alcohol at 50% ABV. An equal parts Negroni rings in at 200 Cal, and you don't want to know what maraschino cherries are worth—about 20 Cal every three cherries. It is best to stick to a lemon or orange peel that you won't be eating unless you need the fiber.
That means if I have two drinks for cocktail hour, I am consuming 300-400 icy cold delicious calories. And let's not forget the glass or two of wine at dinner. A standard glass of wine, 150 ml or 5 oz, is around 120-125 Cal and Kingsley kindly points out that "a Sauternes is more fattening than a white burgundy." So double that amount to account for the two glasses and sticking to Bourgogne Blanc and Chablis, and I am pushing about 700 boozy calories for my alcoholic intake for the day.
According to the Mayo Clinic, someone my age, weight, and activity level should be consuming around 2500 Cal if they want to maintain their situation. I didn't want to maintain it, though; I wanted to lose it.
Kinglsey lists what a drinker should be eating in a section titled "Your Day's Food," and it overall isn't a bad list, if not rather dull. His breakfast is a whole grapefruit without sugar and one boiled egg, but only if you must. Tea and coffee sans sugar and milk are okay too.
I decided to go with Cheerios instead of the forbidden fruit. Following the nutritional information on the back of the iconic yellow box, I measure 39 grams (1 1/2 cups) of Cheerios with 118 milliliters (1/2 cup) of whole milk, totaling 220 Cal to get the day going. I also enjoy a hot tea.
Lunch and dinner, according to Kingsley should, "consist of a selection of thin soup, eggs, fish of all kinds, meat, poultry, game, etc., and cheese, laced with mustard and Worcester sauce. No thick sauces or pickles. Tea or coffee as required. Eat as much salt as you like."
I go about this a little differently. Instead of holding myself to two boring meals, I have one really boring one, and then I forget about my self-imposed rules for dinner. So my lunch is a handful of mixed nuts, a few scoops of cottage cheese, and a spoonful or two of salsa to make the curds and whey somewhat palatable. This comes out to roughly 320 Cal, with the mixed nuts pulling most of the weight in the calorie department. I also enjoy an apple around mid-afternoon to keep the doctor away, and I drink tea all day.
Dinner is a totally different story! It starts with all those cocktails I mentioned above with a few slices of cheese and maybe a small selection of cured meats or some tinned seafood, which has become a favorite treat for cocktail hour. I keep these smoked mussels in stock and this tuna.
Then dinner is basically whatever within reason! The only significant change to the final meal of the day is that I have reigned in my butter usage.
Overall we eat a balanced meal with vegetables and protein, and whatever starch would go best. A few favorites are smothered pork chops with mashed potatoes and zucchini, or baked salmon, black beans, and spinach. We have also been steaming fish a lot and serving the filets with rice and green beans. We don’t do much beef but not for any reason other than I don't digest it all that well.
It's a weird diet, but as I stated earlier, I only had two main requirements:
Lose weight
Don't reduce alcohol intake
So has it worked?
As of yesterday, I am down 10 pounds since the start of the year. Yes, some exercise is going on down in the basement, where I spend a few hours a week sweating out last night's cocktails on the rowing machine while watching old British murder mysteries. Ergometer aside, I would say most of the magic is due to measuring out breakfast and that horrible cottage cheese for lunch. Also, double checking the nutritional information on the back of things to determine what an actual serving size is has been extremely helpful. We also cut out as many preservatives as we could, Cheerios and, of course, alcohol aside.
We haven't attempted to keep the diet going while eating out due to the pandemic closures, but Kingsley's tip while at a restaurant is to "order a dish you hate or one you know they do badly. After a few mouthfuls of the average chicken à la Kiev or boeuf Stroganoff—two of my own unfavourites—your appetite will be fully satisfied."
We can't wait to have someone else do the dishes, but I won't have to suffer through a subpar chicken à la Kiev with this regiment.
In terms of drinking, a "much more cheerful topic," Kinglsey leaves a few pointers, which I will summarize below:
When drinking wine, keep them as dry as possible. Stay away from sweet liqueurs to help not only your waistline but also your hangover problem.
Don't add non-alcoholic ingredients to your spirits unless it's water or carbonated water. Tonic and cola are full of sugar, as is juice.
Drink low-cal beer instead of an aperitif or after-dinner drink.
The science of alcohol is total garbage.
These all make sense. I'll skip #3, though, unless I am at the ballpark!
I will point out that with less food going in my body, the drinks kick in a little quicker, which has had the interesting effect of me actually drinking less. After that first cocktail, I find myself more and more switching over to a glass of wine while I cook instead of enjoying a second Martini or Negroni. Take that for what it's worth!
So from here, I have a few fractions of a point left to shave off my BMI before I can be considered "normal weight," but I already feel much better. In about three weeks at this rate, I should hit my target weight, and by then, I will most likely need a few new pairs of trousers—a good problem to have.
To end, I will let Kingsley finish off this G.P. and the series as a whole:
"Alcohol science is full of crap. It will tell you, for instance, that drink does not really warm you up, it only makes you feel warm—oh, I see; and it will go on about alcohol being not a stimulant but a depressant, which turns out to mean that it depresses qualities like shyness and self-criticism, and so makes you behave as if you had been stimulated—thanks. In the same style, the said science will maintain that alcohol does not really fatten you, it only sets in train a process at the end of which you weigh more. Nevertheless, strong drink does, more than anything else taken by mouth, apart from stuff like cement, cram on the poundage. If you can face it, if you really want to be shapelier faster, if you are dissatisfied with zipping up your trousers at 45 degrees instead of vertically, cut down on hard liquor. Doing so will carry the bonus of—dare I say it?—conducing to your general health."
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this series from Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis.