Dr. David's papadam diet

This article asks: "Which diet is the best at weight loss?" One of my personal achievements during my recent sabbatical was to lose 20 pounds, which occurred between August and October of last year. A few things spurred me on to this: (1) I have a six-year-old daughter and I am pushing the half-century mark. This gave me an incentive to bring myself to a healthier weight more likely to increase longevity. (2) I was having trouble fitting into my clothes. I could not afford a new wardrobe. (3) I was suffering from bursitis which made moving around a fairly painful experience.

There were no fad diets involved in this. I simply began to exercise on our cross-country-ski machine at home and I began to eat less, cutting down in particular on the olive oil which has been a staple of my diet since I was a small child. I was aided in this by keeping a stack of papadams in the kitchen. A papadam is a kind of Indian cracker made from lentil flour. It is thus high in protein and, if toasted and not fried, low in calories. I generally eat one or two of these before retiring at night or if I am hungry in the mid-afternoon.

As a consequence of this, I now weigh slightly more than I did as an undergraduate three decades ago. I feel terrific and have more energy than I had had in years. I can play with our daughter without conking out prematurely. My bursitis is gone and I feel twenty years younger. I am inclined to think that exercise is the key to losing weight and keeping it off. That and the papadams.