Hipsters don’t work out at the gym; it’s impossible to sweat ironically. And a true hipster would rather wear mom jeans than admit to being on a diet.
Nobody knows this better than Martin Cizmar, whose hipster credentials are impeccable: He’s the arts editor of Willamette Week, an alternative newspaper in hipster-centric Portland, Oregon.
His former-fatty cred is up there, too: Cizmar, 31, lost 45kg in eight months. And he did it without yapping about carbs or acai berries or boring his friends with the D-word.
Photo: Bloomberg
“I hate the word ‘diet,’” says Cizmar, the author of Chubster: A Hipster’s Guide to Losing Weight While Staying Cool. (It will be published to coincide with January 2012 New Year’s resolutions.)
“Diets don’t work. Diets are a gimmick, and a gimmick, you’re not going to stick with. But if you make a lifestyle change, and good things come as a result of that, then you can stick with it. That’s how I live now.”
Cizmar knows firsthand the nasty inner voice that harangues everyone self-conscious about their weight. When his 180cm frame was holding up 132kg, the first thing he did upon entering a room was a quick reconnaissance to confirm that he was the largest person present. He eyeballed chairs before sitting down, and once misjudged a lawn chair that snapped under his weight. On a visit to an amusement park in Cedar Point, Ohio, Cizmar waited in line for the roller coaster only to discover that he couldn’t fit into the car.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Those kinds of horrible scenarios happen to people all the time,” he said. “When you finally lose weight, you go, ‘Why did I live like that for so long? Why did I do that to myself?’ And when you’re that big when you start, you don’t have to be a saint to lose weight. You just have to be not ridiculous. When I started, I could have eaten a Big Mac for lunch, a Big Mac and fries for dinner, and two or three doughnuts for breakfast and still lost 4 or 5 pounds [around 2kg] a week.”
He didn’t, though. He counted calories.
“If you count calories, you can lose weight eating whatever you want as long as you’re expending more energy than you take in,” he said.
Chubster devotes two chapters to nutrition, including an exhaustive analysis of popular microwave meals, ranked Awesome or Awful, fast food and ethnic food. (If you’re a fan of Thai coconut curry or Japanese unagi, the news is not good.)
Cizmar recommends Mexican restaurant Chipotle’s burrito bowl (chicken, rice, beans, salsa clock in at 520 calories) but not the regular steak burrito with cheese, sour cream and guacamole (1,200 calories, “and that’s without the chips”).
Indian food? Cizmar steers readers toward chicken tikka (estimated at 600 calories with rice) and away from “all the glorious breads,” especially the malpua, an 800-calorie fried fritter.
There’s a section on “Stuff You Can Barely Afford: Upscale Restaurants” with terse advice on what to order or ignore. He condones braised over ragu, caviar over chorizo, persimmon over pomegranate (restaurants often reduce pomegranate into a sugary paste), and sorbet over zabaione.
The chapter on drugs and alcohol may threaten Cizmar’s hipster cred: He disses Pabst Blue Ribbon, the watery beer that’s practically a synonym for “hipster.”
“I’m a beer-snob hipster,” Cizmar explained, “so I don’t feel too bad about throwing Pabst under the bus. For the taste, it’s not a good calorie bargain. I know that’s a tough position that could turn off a lot of readers, though.”
Counting calories and reading up on nutrition is only half the game in Chubster. Anyone who’s ever confronted losing weight can predict the other half.
“Exercise,” he said.
“To me, going to the gym two hours a day is not how I want to live. But I do ride my bike to work 6 miles [10km] a day, and other people might find that a little crazy. When I lived in Phoenix, I’d hike up a mountain in the middle of the day when it was 110 degrees [43°C] outside, because I like to hike. It’s all about what you want your lifestyle to be. You have to be happy with what you’re eating. You have to be happy with what you’re doing, and how it pays off for your body.”
And why wait until New Year’s Day to start? Cizmar thinks fellow Chubsters can get going now, even with Thanksgiving on the horizon.
“What you do before a meal like that is make a little plan for yourself,” he said. “Look up the calorie counts of the food they’re going to have. Turkey is great. Have two slices of turkey. A bit of sweet potatoes, but scrape off the marshmallows and kinda make it look like you ate them. Mashed potatoes with no gravy.
“That’s a nice 500, 600-calorie meal there, if you stay away from the rolls. You’re going to eat a meal with your family. Don’t approach it like it’s torture. Focus on the food you can eat and enjoy it.”
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