All I can say is thank God, Oprah is motivated to lose weight again. It's totally inspiring if you ask me. Watching her new Best Life series this week has been saving mine. You know. Sort of. It's all I can do to not sit on my couch with a sleeve of mallomars and listen to her weight loss experts lecture Americans on the danger of too much belly fat.

I find waving junk food at television hosts to be very freeing. I'm waiting for Ellen to get over her send-me-pictures-of-your-pet phase so I can send her pictures of what I do when she has on boring guests. Protesting television content by way of taunting unsuspecting hosts and annoying guests with platters of nachos and entire cakes in their face goes back to season one of the Biggest Loser.

Tell me you don't watch that show with a huge plate of chili cheese fries in your lap? I know. Right? Jillian Michaels is so totally certifiable it's a wonder the show is still on the air.

Let's get fired up! Let's get rough!
Let's get fired up! Let's get mean!
Let's get fired up! And roll right over that team!

Statistics show that everyone in the whole wide world (except possibly Jillian Michaels) has long since given up on their New Year's Resolutions. Already. Present company included. I quit the day after I paid for my new gym membership. There's just something about seeing that little gym ID tag on my key ring that makes me feel skinny. Skinny and entitled.

Before I signed up for my new gym membership I quit because of the whether. Too gloomy. Before I quit because of the weather, I quit because I really enjoyed all those holiday sweets. Before that, I quit because it's been way too cold to shop for vegetables. Shoe shopping? Yes. Brussels sprouts and green beans? No way. One time I quit because because no one even knew I started. Bathing suit season is like, forever away.

Alla Kadabra Alakazam! Approach weight loss gently, simply, realistically and with a quiet resolve and you'll get there. It takes as much effort to be five pounds heavier as it does to be five pounds lighter.

If you love the feeling of your pants being way too big because you're "losing so much weight", you're going to have to work at it a little. Change the way you think about food. Change the way you shop for food. Change the way you approach each meal.

Broaden your culinary horizons by exploring new recipes, new culinary websites and blogs. Check cookbooks out at your local library. Copy all the recipes that sound really great. And try them.

Whoa! I can feel your painful excuses. Is she kidding me? Check out a book at my local library? I barely have time to get home in time for carryout suppers, let alone, home cooked suppers. Blah blah blah.

Silencio! Nothing worth having comes easy. If you didn't want to change the way you feel and the way you eat, you'd be whipping up a batch of Ina Garten's cupcakes right now.


5 Ways to Change Your Eating Habits Today

1. Recycle, reintroduce, refuse! Recycle all the really great diet tips you've ever heard. Reintroduce all the fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains missing from your diet right now. Refuse to give in to excuses! "Too busy to to cook", "you don't have time to cook" and "you don't know how to cook" are not reasons to abandon your good health.

2. Think like a new Mom. Picture all those jars of Gerber and organic baby foods lined up on the shelves of the baby food aisle at your grocery store. No additives, no preservatives and no funky ingredients. Just delicious wholesome fruit and vegetable purees and whole grain cereals. The next time you're at the grocery store, look all those baby foods and then challenge yourself to come up with ways to work in at least three of them this week. Google the name of the food items you choose and a zillion recipes will come up. Surely one will appeal to you.

3. Think like an athlete. Grocery shop like an athlete. Pretend you're shopping for Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods. What would you feed them? What kinds of foods do you think they consume regularly to keep their bodies in tip-top shape? Write down everything you come up with on your grocery list and follow through.

4. Think like a chef of a luxury tropical resort. Eat like a guest at a four star luxury tropical resort. Focus on foods you love that are naturally healthy and eat those foods most of the time. One of the reasons I was able to lose all my weight is because I swapped the seasons of my eating. I went from eating winter comfort foods to hot weather fare.

Think sushi, ceviche, gazpacho, oysters, clams, crab and lobster. Think about all the foods you eat during the dog days of summer; really great chilled fruits; mangos, papayas, kiwi, quava and berries. What flavors do you often see and crave at beach-y restaurants and Oceanside cafes? Lemon, lime and oranges; garlic, ginger and thai chilies, Key limes, sesame oil and rice vinegar.

Menus usually offer lots of seafood; crabs in crab season, grilled tuna, mahi-mahi, halibut, sea bass, shark, cod, snapper and more. Grilled Fish is typically seasoned with salt and pepper, grilled and then served with citrus wedges, simple fruit salsas, beans and rice, small salads and room temperature or chilled vegetables.

5. Cook at home more than you eat out. No matter what you cook at home, you'll never be able to get the sodium, fat and calorie counts as high as restaurants do. What are the chances that you'd serve yourself a half-a-chicken, a 12-ounce burger, a two-pound lobster or a 15-ounce filet?

How often do you put a whole basket of warm bread and a half a pound of butter on the table for everyone to enjoy? When was the last time you divided a seven layer chocolate cake into quarters and called each "slice" a portion? Have you ever made a real banana split at home? The kind with three generous scoops of ice-cream, three chocolaty, pineapple fruity toppings, with toasted nuts, real whipped cream and a cherry on top?

kd@chefkathleen.com