Eating out BalancePoint-style
A Conversation with Binx Selby on How to Eat BalancePoint-style,
both at home and ANYWHERE else
Eating BalancePoint at . . .
A roadside diner?
A retreat?
The Airport?
No Problem!
Marsha
Now that I’m on BalancePoint, I keep wondering how you eat when you’re not at home to prepare your own meals?
Binx
It’s actually been no problem for me. When our bicycling group heads out on the plains, we stop in villages with very un-Boulder-like eateries. Places like, “Joe’s Diner” or “Grandma’s Café.” I think you sort of get the hang of it. Park Café was all smokers when we used to go there but now, state law outlaws smoking inside restaurants. So, it’s really quite pleasant except the place still smells like smoke but we go there anyway because it’s the kind of place our group likes. When I knew we were going to stop someplace like that, I used to bring along an apple, a handful of nuts, and a small bottle of oil oil, since I didn’t expect to find anything for me. Then one morning, when we had stopped there for brunch, down in the corner of the menu at the Park Café, I saw “Dinner salad $1.10.” It was described as “mixed green.” That means it’s the white and not-totally-white lettuce from a head of iceberg. They get rid of any of the green stuff.
Marsha
They use the green to decorate the salad bar.
Binx
No, there is no salad bar at the Park Cafe. So I looked around and I noticed that someone had just gotten onion rings, served on a piece of green lettuce. I asked, “Can I have a green lettuce salad?” The waitress said, “Well we’ve got the regular kind of lettuce.” I said, “You mean the white iceberg kind of lettuce?” She said, “That’s right. That’s what we’ve got. And we give it some carrots and cheese. We put lots of cheese in it.” The carrots and cheese wouldn’t work for BalancePoint. So I said, “Well, I noticed you have a garnish.” She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, you know, the stuff you put the onion rings on.” “Oh, you mean the ‘green doily’.” She had some name that identified it in a completely non-vegetable way. And I said, “You know what? I want a big plate of garnish.”
Marsha
Of green garnish!
Binx
Of green garnish. So after ordering garnish, I added, “And I want one whole tomato - sliced up. And do you have any tuna fish?” “Oh we do tuna sandwiches,” she said, nodding. I thought about typical restaurant mayonnaise. It’s usually made with poor quality oils and a fair amount of sugar. So I asked, “Do you have any tuna you haven’t mixed with mayonnaise?” She replied, “Oh, yeah, we’ve got a big can.” I said, “Great–I want a scoop of that on top of the garnish.”
Marsha
Did you ask if it was canned in water or oil?
Binx
No, because I don’t care. The oil for canned tuna is usually not the best, but they drain most of it out anyway, and I have my own olive oil along to add in. So it was fine. So then they had little bottles of hot sauces on the table–all kinds of flavors of Mexican hot sauces. This was a Hispanic area. There were four or five bottles, so I lined them up and I poured out a bit of each on different parts of my dish. And then I remembered seeing parsley so I had them bring out some parsley. And you know, everyone around the table has got all these big pancake platters and they’re looking at this thing I’ve got in front of me. It’s a big green salad. And remember, I also carry my little plastic bottle of olive oil and a piece of fruit. I sliced up my fruit, added it to the top of my garnish-tomato-parsley-hot sauce mixture and I had this great salad.
So, it proved to be very easy. What I do is smile and warn the waitress that I’m a troublemaker. Then they think you’re really going to be a pain in the neck. And next they’re astounded, “All you want is a plate of garnish?” And of course they don’t know how to price it. So I got this all for $1.10. The scoop of tuna was 50 cents extra. It about broke the bank. I tell you it was about the same price as my tea.
I can order BalancePoint-compliant meals everywhere. We went to Perkins, you know, the chain? So anyway, I look at the menu. Well, it’s very interesting. They have Egg Beaters that they can make for you. But I like the texture of egg whites better than Egg Beaters. So I ordered poached eggs because it’s easy to take out the egg yolks. Then, when I asked what they were serving as a vegetable side, it was broccoli. So I got steamed broccoli to put around my eggs.
And it turns out that at Perkins, they make their own big dessert specials. There was a picture of one with some berries on it and a ton of confectioner’s sugar. So I said, “You know what I want? I want…” I pointed to the menu, “I want this. I want the berries just by themselves. No sugar, no cake. I’d like a cup of those berries.” The waitress said, “We can do that.”
When she came out with my order, she had the egg dish with broccoli on it and a great big bowl of berries. It took me two seconds to pull out the egg yolks, so that I was just eating egg whites with the brocolli, and I had my little bottle with 20 grams olive oil along to pour on them, making them even more delicious. As for the fresh strawberries and fresh blueberries they were absolutely perfect. I asked the waitress, “Where do you get your berries?” She replied, “They come already pre-mixed. The company supplies them and we always have them fresh. We have them year-round–it’s part of our standard menu. You can always get them.” So, everybody at the table is looking at me enviously. This was at Perkins, and it can be anywhere.
Marsha
Here’s my little plastic bottle of pre-measured olive oil I carry with me.
Binx
Well, that’s a 60 gram-size bottle and if that’s your daily allotment of olive oil, you’re too low–10 or 15 grams low. We recommend getting a 75-gram size bottle with a screw top, like from a camping supply store. Or if you’d prefer glass, you can get one of those glass canning jars with the screw on lids. The key is to get one that holds at least 75 grams of oil, and use it all up, every day. People who do this are surprised at how much weight they can lose on BalancePoint with this amount of oil. It’s because you need that much to keep you in lipid (fat-burning) metabolism.
Most people want to lose weight on this diet, but you don’t have to. It’s your choice. You still get remarkable cholesterol reduction whether you lose, gain, or maintain your weight. If you find after the initial couple days, when the body needs to lose a couple pounds to reset the metabolism, that you’re still losing weight and don’t want to, then just add more nuts or add more oil. Or have another half an avocado.
Marsha
I had about 10 grams of oil today on my eggs because I figured the half an avocado I ate added fat content.
Binx
I still put oil on my half an avocado and everything else. There is definitely a tipping point, and that’s why we insist you carefully measure and calculate your intake to make sure you’re getting at least 65% or more of your calories from the oil or other sources of fat. Even 60% oil a day is too low. It’s interesting that if people short themselves what they think is “only” one or two tablespoons of oil a day then the rapid reduction of cholesterol that we usually see during the two-week Jumpstart program ends up being only half what we expect.
Since I’ve been following the BalancePoint protocol since 2005, I’m kind of in a rhythm now where I’m pretty darn close to automatically using the right amount of oil. I can actually tell by how I feel. I know which days I’m going to lose weight and which days I’m going to gain. You get a real sense for it. A scientist who wrote about nutritional habits of primates observed that they have a real sense of what they need. They’ll eat a little bit from this tree. (Gesturing) And they’ll go a mile and a half over here to get a bite of that from this other tree. And then they’ll go here. They have a real sense of what they need and people on our diet get it too.
People who follow our protocol also get a new sense of taste I suspect that the traditional American diet actually dulls the taste buds. When people get away from all that and eat foods on the BalancePoint program, their taste buds come alive. Foods that they used to consider bland taste sweet, spicy, flavorful. In a salad, the green leaf lettuce starts tasting smoother, and the romaine lettuce more spicy and a little bit sweet. Green onions and red peppers start tasting amazingly sweet.
Marsha
Throughout the winter I like a heartier meal than a salad.
Binx
If you put the amount of oil you’re supposed to put on that salad it’s a very hearty meal. Drench that salad in oil.
Marsha
Yeah, but I don’t want just salad. I want something hot.
Binx
Well then, make a cooked vegetable. That’s what I do. I’ll have a big plate of chard sautéed with olive oil and garlic and ginger. Or I’ll have okra or Brussels sprouts with curry.
Marsha
(Nodding) Like a stir fry vegetable–those kind of recipes. I even have a recipe for sweet potato and Vidalia onion roasted. It’s delicious with almonds.
Binx
That’s basically alright if you keep the sweet potato part to a minimum. Sweet potatoes are high in starch and especially when they’re cooked, they can raise your blood sugars, which then raises your insulin levels and can turn down fat-burning. Actually, that’s also true if you cook a whole plate of Vidalia onions. They’re on the sweet side and can get to be too much, if you eat way too many. Watch the carbohydrate calculation. It’s easy to slip over that 20-25% maximum number for percentage of carbs of your daily total. That’s why we recommend something green and leafy with every meal-they’re full of nutrients without a lot of sugars. As for those sweet potatoes, right in the beginning, during the first two weeks, we’d say keep them limited. Their glycemic index is not as high as a real potato which raises blood sugars too fast during the two weeks or after. After the first two weeks of the protocol, I still wouldn’t eat sweet potatoes for every meal, but having some occasionally is fine.
By the way, something like a plate of salad greens with feta cheese, tomato, chopped up mint and olive oil is very filling. It’s a great dish and really, very balanced in terms of offering adequate protein, plus if you pour on the olive oil, plenty of fat. Just because a restaurant might call this type of combination a salad, it’s really more than that. It’s a complete meal. It’s got lots of tomatoes and wonderful mint flavor. If you can get spearmint it’s really good.
Marsha
I’m growing spearmint. I have a ton of spearmint. So what am I going to do with it? I don’t know what to do with so much of it.
Binx
I’ll come and make you an awesome salad. You take a block of the low cholesterol feta. There’s an organic version called Organic Valley. It’s only got 10 milligrams cholesterol per pound. For 15 grams of protein, I dice up 110 grams of feta by cutting it into about ¼ inch slices and then cutting it the other way. So they’re not really crumbles, but they’re fairly small pieces. It’s enough that the olive oil can get completely around it. And then I coarsely cut the mint. A lot of mint. At least a cupful, which amounts to roughly 60 grams. This is not a garnish. This is the salad. So you’re going to get a big bunch of spearmint, not just little handful. Get the stems off, coarsely chopping it fully. Then you take a couple of big tomatoes. That’s roughly 350 grams. And you dice those up into ½ inch cubes. And you put it together and toss it. Then pour olive oil over it and toss it. I actually like it better if it sits in the fridge for a couple hours.
Marsha
With that olive oil in it?
Binx
Yeah, with everything mixed in. I think, somehow the mint diffuses into the olive oil and the oil diffuses into the cheese. And it’s very rich. Oh, by the way, there’s plenty of salt in the feta so don’t put any salt on. I made the mistake of doing that once. It was very salty.
Marsha
Well, what about people going to conferences or workshops where the meals are all prepared? I’m going to a retreat center and they asked me if I need to have something that’s gluten-free or dairy-free. I said I’m currently on a diet prohibiting grains. But what if they don’t understand? Or they forget? And what if I can’t tell, because they’re serving something that’s already mixed together?
Binx
If you tell them that you need veggies and salad, it’s real easy. They almost always have things set up so that you can pick and choose. Often in a buffet line, I serve myself a big plate of greens, add the cooked vegetable-as long as it’s not peas or carrots-and a tiny bit of the meat for flavoring. There’s usually a salad you can add. And next to the salads, by the dressings, they often have extra virgin olive oil these days. But just in case, I travel with my own extra virgin olive oil supply along with some lemons or limes. And, if possible, I carry almond butter because if you need protein you can always add this to your breakfast on hard-boiled eggs (remove the yolks) or as a snack dip for fresh fruit, which you can usually find on the buffet table.
Now, what I’ve said works at most conference and retreats. But I have to admit, there was one where even I came close to failing. It was one of those boot-camp Zen retreats where the whole time is spent in silence and there’s only a few minutes allocated for eating. You don’t say, “That’s enough.” It’s all done in silence. So you have all of these cryptic signals for “just a little” or “more please”. They’re scooping into your one bowl all this stuff you can’t eat. And you’re not supposed to leave a crumb. So I’m trying to remember which is the signal to stop, and I’m doing the wrong thing. They think I want more.
After that experience, I’ve learned to recommend going to a retreat with a bunch of vegetables such as celery, kale and collard greens. Get some fruit like apples, pears or peaches that take a little while to ripen. Get a packet of avocados. And just have that stuff so that if you need it you’re prepared. And then have your big bottle of olive oil with enough for the whole retreat . . . oh, say a half quart of olive oil, and your little bottles of, say, 75 grams for the whole day, or 25 grams for a single serving. Before you leave home, fill your little bottles with olive oil and weigh them. Then put a mark on the side for how much will count as one serving. So if you’re using your 60-gram bottle, then pour out, oh, let’s say, 30 grams for breakfast, and then pour out the rest for lunchtime Now you’re at 60 grams of oil so far for the day. Before dinner, add some more oil to your bottle, say 15 grams, using the marks you’ve made on it to help you out. You can estimate if you have to because when you’re away from home it’s hard to measure.
But it’s really important to carry along the oil bottle. I’ve found that when people stop using enough oil then the rest of the diet degenerates because the people get feeling hungry and eat the wrong things to compensate. And you’re not keeping the fat and cholesterol-burners going.
I’ve even figured out how to do this in the airport. I’ve got three different small jars, each one under 3 ounces, that I fill with olive oil, and then I put them in the sealed, quart-sized plastic bag right there with my toothpaste and shaving cream, and it goes through the security posts just fine. An airport’s an important place for having enough of your olive oil, just like it is at a retreat.
Marsha
That’s why I started measuring it by always using my 60 gram bottle. I found I wasn’t eating this much oil because you pour it on and you think you’ve already got a lot.
Binx
If you do a salad with the right amount of oil, when you get done you’re feeling full. I do like a hot vegetable with it often. Sometimes I just put it all on the salad, sometimes on the side. Vegetable sauces for pastas-if they haven’t added sugar to them-are perfect this way. You can add them on top of salad greens if you like the sensation of a “carrier” like pasta, which adds no flavor either-just bulk. Or you can have the sauce in a bowl like a stew. Remember to add your olive oil to it.
I also like to get some poblano peppers. They have a little bite to them. I’ll dice those up and put them raw on my salad. But they’re also really good cooked, one of the most flavorful things you can use. There’s sort of a northwestern Spanish dish where you put some olive oil and just a little bit of water and you cook the poblanos. Sprinkle a bit of coarse salt on them. Not much if you got some kosher salt. Just a few grains on it so it’s sort of like a little salt surprise. So you’ll be eating it and then all of the sudden there’ll be a little …
Marsha
… burst of salt.
Binx
Yeah. Plus their spiciness. It just has a really nice flavor. So adding a lot of oil on it makes a wonderful condiment. I keep a bunch of those peppers in the fridge so that if I want some I might throw a couple of them in with the eggs in the morning. Or I love eating them as a snack.
Marsha
Alright, another thing that I wanted to ask you is it seems to me that long-term we need recipes where we can make a double or triple batch, and freeze part of it. All of us are out all the time and we come home tired and hungry and that’s when we’re most likely to go off of a good eating plan.
Binx
That’s an option, but when you can’t go home there are two things that made it easier for me. One is I can eat out anywhere in the way we just talked about. The second is that more and more restaurants now are serving tasty Mediterranean-style appetizers for Happy Hour. At one restaurant I had tapas or small plates. You can get things like spinach cooked in olive oil, eggplant or babganoush, mushroom caps in garlic, sautéed artichokes, tomatoes with feta. These are all done with olive oil, not butter.
One restaurant even had deep-fried tomato strip frites on the menu-I just asked if it was possible to get it without the breading and they checked with the kitchen and came back with it that way. Delicious! If the options are unusually limited, sometimes I’ll just pull the breading off something.
And after the two-weeks when there’s more flexibility for meat or beans, the single kabob-size portions of meat or seafood and small servings of hummus . If it’s larger portions, I ask for a “doggy bag,” right away, so I can slice off the portion that’s too much for me, and put it out of sight and temptation. That way, I enjoy my meal and at the same time, keep it within the BalancePoint protein (40 to 50 grams of protein) or carb limits (below 20-25% of calories.) Just don’t touch the pita bread, croutons or garlic toast that come with them! You can of course have that glass of wine and still be on BalancePoint! So if you have a local restaurant which serves this type of Happy Hour menu you’ll find a lot of BalancePoint choices.
Marsha
I’m trying to find more ways to eat at home without having to go out.
Binx
Well, it’s a good exercise to go out and eat because what you do is you start to look at what they’ve got and you ‘compose.’ I find it very synergistic for getting a sense of what to eat here. We’re going to have a card that you can take to a restaurant Hand it to the server - “Does this explain the limitation?” And that helps so they don’t put dressing on the salad. I’ve always got a whole half lemon and my olive oil with me for that.
Marsha
The other night we were with your wife and we got lemon slices. She told us about how you always say a “wedge” because you can’t squeeze a slice of lemon.
Binx
Yes, they’re good for floating in drinks but they’re not good for squeezing juice on food. So I say, “A half a lemon - that’s not a half a lemon made of slices.” And you get the waitperson engaged. Then that’s what I always do. You know, sort of make a game out of it, let them see the fun of it.
Marsha
Well, it makes them think.
Binx
And then they’re on your side. Once that happens, then they’re figuring out how to do it. Sometimes the cook comes out to check to check to see if they understood the order right. At the end I always pay my dues like to the woman who put together the plate of garnish. She brought it out sort of hesitantly, sort of like, “Did he really want this?” So I gave her a big compliment and told her what a great job she did. That tickles all the staff. Now every time I come back to one of these restaurants I’m known as the guy who eats the garnish.
Marsha
Your daughter loves to tell me all about her dad making a big scene. “No, no, I want the lemon like this.” You can picture her face.
Binx
Yes. “Oh, Dad! It’s so embarrassing!”
Marsha
That’s what parents are for - to embarrass their children.
Binx
That’s right. “Would you want me to be any different?” “Well, no, but…” You know, as long as you keep smiling and using a sense of humor the server usually tries really hard to get you what you need.
I mean, imagine how, in the middle of Wyoming at a buffalo restaurant, I see a piece of beautiful endive as a garnish on the plate going by. So guess what the waitress ends up bringing me with a big grin! By the way, after the first two weeks on BalancePoint, buffalo (or grass-fed beef) is one of the best meats to have if you want red meat. To keep the protein content down around 15 grams per meal, always use small portions, like two ounces of buffalo. Of course, or your LDL cholesterol level will start back up again if you eat too much protein. So at the buffalo steakhouse where the smallest entrée is 14 ounces, naturally, you ask for that doggy bag, and it gives you a way to make a week’s worth of delicious meals at home.
Speaking of home, a lot of these preparations can be kept for a period of time. Like that mint salad with the feta–feta keeps forever. And when you put feta in oil it even keeps longer. So that’s one of the ones if you just keep it covered over, it really keeps well.
Marsha
I wasn’t aware that feta was even on the first two weeks of the BalancePoint program.
Binx
You just have to make sure you get the low-fat one. It wasn’t on the diet when we first created it. But because I found the low-fat version available in enough places I’ve decided to put it in. People like having the option to add it for taste and because many like some kind of cheese. They just have to remember to keep the amount small-only for flavor.
Marsha
And what about yogurt? I know you don’t use the regular kind.
Binx
We use the strained, Greek-style yogurt which has just started coming out in a number of brands, like Fage, Oikos, Voskos. Some labels say, “Greek style”, but actually contain cornstarch-a no,no for us-and are not strained yogurt.
Marsha
Are they available everywhere?
Binx
Here in Boulder even Safeway carries one of the brands. Maybe because so many “BalancePointers” go in asking for them. But anywhere you live most stores are happy to try to place a special order for you. You can go through a lot of yogurt, not just by itself but for making things like the BalancePoint version of “Hollandaise” or “almond butter snack”, so it’s worth ordering a case. And you get a case price.
But there’s also a very easy alternative that our friend Dee first introduced me to. Her parents have Greek and Syrian roots. They use a good quality non-fat yogurt, like Nancy’s, and let it drain overnight. All you have to do is get one of those $4 stainless steel coffee strainers at Walmart or Target, put it on top of a quart container like the plastic one regular yogurt comes in, and line it with a paper coffee filter. Set it on your counter, dump in the yogurt and let it sit there draining overnight. It’s really simple.
Marsha
Why not drain it in cheesecloth? You want all the liquid to drain off, right?
Binx
You can use cheesecloth if you want.
Marsha
I’m trying to reduce the number of things in my kitchen.
Binx
The only reason to use the stainless steel ones is because they’re very convenient and very clean. And you can use it over and over again. It’s a permanent coffer strainer that’s basket or conical-shaped.
Marsha
A regular strainer won’t work?
Binx
Yeah, a regular coffee strainer works fine.
Either way, just remember to use the paper filter. Cheesecloth is a bit coarser. Yogurt tends to get a little broken up so it’s not as firm a curd. Cheesecloth was designed for this. What you’re doing is trying to drain the whey off. That’s what contains the hormone, insulin-like growth factor, and proteins like casein, which all tend to increase inflammation. While cheese cloth works, I find it’s even better to use the real fine screens. I’ve tried all three and I just found that the finer screens work better. It was easier.
Doing it yourself this way makes something that tastes and has the texture of sour cream. It’s non-fat. And it’s more sour, which real yogurt aficionados love. You might have to develop a taste for it, especially if you’re used to the regular yogurts which, if you look on the labels, are filled with sugar-and cornstarch, another no-no. I find that once someone gets used to the deeper, more complex taste of the strained yogurt, then there’s no turning back.
Both the pre-prepared Greek yogurts and the starter ones like Nancy’s use a broad spectrum of very good bacteria. But it’s a little different combination. The nice thing about Fage is that it’s not sour, but almost a crème-fraiche.
For a snack I like to mix the yogurt with the fresh, grind-it-yourself almond butter you get at natural foods stores. So I’ll take an equal part of almond butter and the yogurt and blend it together. It’s a wonderful dip for apples. I mean you really feel like you’re being totally decadent.
Or, you take your drained yogurt and stir olive oil into it. Then add just a little extra lime, lemon, or key lime depending on what flavor you like and you have a great “Hollandaise” for dipping artichokes, putting on eggs, using as a salad dressing.
Marsha
I mix the yogurt with the cocoa.
Binx
Oh, do you? Now, that’s interesting.
Marsha
And then add some nuts to it.
Binx
I’ve never thought of that. That’s a great idea. See, we’ve got to share some of these recipes.
It makes me think of one of my favorite recipes that we need to hand out [See page ___]. You take canned or cooked artichoke hearts and chopped olives and coarsely mash it together with a ton of oil and cilantro or parsley, depending on which flavor you want to go with. It makes a dip for slices of fennel bulb. It’s a fantastic recipe because it uses artichoke hearts packed in water. You can get those at Costco, six cans in a pack, something like a dollar a piece. They’re real cheap. And they work great. With the olive oil, it is just totally rich and filling. Absolutely delicious.
And it’s fun to pick an olive that you like the flavor of. So you go to the olive bar. This way you get to taste all of their olives, which are all on the diet. I find myself having to sample extensively before I make my choice (Laughing). But then I end up buying a whole selection because I begin to imagine other dishes I want to try them with.
Marsha
Now, see, this is what’s intriguing–to introduce things that people don’t normally buy or use regularly. That’s what will be exciting and fun.
Binx
You’re right. It’s not about deprivation or what you can’t have. You bring your sense of adventure and creativity to the BalancePoint diet and it becomes an opportunity. An opportunity to explore and discover while enjoying some great meals. What better way to fix your cholesterol or weight?