Our Former Restaurant Critic Changed His Eating Habits. You Can, Too.

[ad_1] Pete Wells tells how he recovered from an out-of-control weight-reduction plan. And every week in January, he and consultants will recommend methods to reset your personal urge for food.

By Pete Wells

A reporter for the Meals part, Pete Wells was The Instances’s chief restaurant critic for 12 years.

Printed Jan. 5, 2026 Up to date Jan. 5, 2026

Amazon lists greater than 70,000 weight-reduction plan books. Not a single one is named “Eat Like a Restaurant Critic.”

That line of labor, which was mine from 2012 till 2024, gave me many rewards, however a simple glide path to well being was not one in every of them. By my final yr on the job, I used to be a multitude. I creaked and groaned and belched like a tractor. Heaving myself out of the again seat of a automotive took a lot effort that I dreamed a few transportable winch. I waddled to the toilet 4 or 5 instances an evening, between bouts of heartburn. I awakened with complications, a mouth as dry as an emery board and a heavy coating of fatigue that I may by no means shake.

With every new grievance, I assumed: So that is life after 60. I continued to imagine this till a health care provider despatched me a collection of numbers preceded by the phrases blood stress, weight, physique mass index, triglycerides, blood sugar. The numbers had been massive, he mentioned. Taken along with my bodily complaints, they pointed to prediabetes, fatty liver illness, metabolic syndrome, sleep apnea, acid reflux disorder and weight problems.

The prospect of diabetes scared me probably the most. Above all, it’s what drove me to ask for one more job at The Instances and to show myself how you can eat once more.

<img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" alt="Two slices of sweet potatoes are bathed in charmoula and roasted chickpeas." decoding="async" class="ResponsiveImage_image__zGSfP" width="1367" height="2048" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf-jumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 684w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf/05FD-diet-reset-1-seared-sweet-potatoes-hqgf-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 1367w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1160px"/> Boiling candy potatoes as an alternative of roasting them slows the speed at which their sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream.

Reset Your Urge for food That is the primary of 4 articles by Pete Wells, showing every Monday in January, about how he created more healthy consuming habits.

Virtually two years later, with no treatment besides a day by day blood-pressure capsule, virtually all of these situations have receded to much less scary ranges, though the ldl cholesterol in my blood is placing up a struggle. As we speak, I'm about 55 kilos lighter than I used to be at my zenith, a loss roughly equal to dropping a complete male basset hound.

Slimming down was not my fundamental function. I by no means counted a single calorie. In some way, that took care of itself due to the brand new methods I began procuring, cooking and consuming again then and have roughly caught to since.

Though the way in which I used to feed myself was unconventional, the outcomes of my years-long binge are all too typical. Greater than two out of 5 individuals in the US have weight problems. A 3rd are prediabetic. One in 10 has Sort 2 diabetes itself. Genes and different elements can play a task in these situations, however the root downside for hundreds of thousands of us is that we've stopped consuming sensibly. We stuff our stomachs with much more meals than we'd like. No surprise about 12 % of American adults say they've tried one of many GLP-1 drugs for weight reduction.

I’m no skilled on vitamin. With reference to overeating, although, my credentials are onerous to beat. In my lengthy climb out of the deep pit I dug myself into, I’ve come to know a number of issues about how I acquired there. As I’ve tried to construct a more healthy relationship with meals, I’ve additionally realized a bit concerning the methods our our bodies and minds work.

Every Monday for the subsequent 4 weeks, I’ll lay out a few of the insights that helped me, and a few recipes that replicate how I eat at house lately. By describing how I realized to eat a extra balanced weight-reduction plan, I don't imply to recommend that you'll have the identical luck with my routine, or that you need to even attempt. I wanted to manage sugar, ldl cholesterol and overeating generally. I didn’t fear, although, about sodium and potassium, which might be main considerations for any person with kidney illness. Clearly, anybody with a selected well being difficulty ought to get recommendation from a health care provider.

Recipes to Reset Your Urge for food Baked Metal-Minimize Oats With Nut Butter | Scrambled Eggs With Zucchini | Easy Boiled Greens | Sheet-Pan Coconut Curry With Squash and Tofu | Brussels Sprout Salad With Pomegranate and Pistachios | Quinoa Salad | Millet With Corn, Mango and Shrimp | Salmon and Inexperienced Beans in Pink Pepper Sauce | Roasted Broccoli and Chickpeas With Mole Verde | Ginger Rooster and Rice Soup With Zucchini | Coconut Fish and Tomato Bake My assumption is that, like me, lots of people merely need to eat much less of the stuff we all know we’re speculated to keep away from and extra of the stuff that’s higher for us. These should not dietary tips however basic ideas on how you can behave extra sensibly within the presence of meals.

The behavioral method has turn out to be a dominant faculty of thought in mainstream vitamin because it’s turn out to be clear that the mind-set that reduces the challenges of weight-reduction plan to mere math — in any other case referred to as “energy in, energy out” — will get most individuals nowhere. Consuming is, in any case, a conduct. We discover ways to do it, and we are able to unlearn our habits if there seems to be a greater method.

Break Up With Sugar <img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/01/05/dining/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" alt="Sugar cubes are stacked in five columns on a blue background." decoding="async" class="ResponsiveImage_image__zGSfP" width="2048" height="1366" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/01/05/dining/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar-jumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 1024w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/01/05/dining/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar/05FD-diet-reset-1-sugar-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1160px"/> Sugar in easy carbohydrates drives the urge for food. Credit score... MirageC/GettyImages

The very first thing I got down to do after I left the physician’s workplace was to hunt for easy carbohydrates to chop out of the meals I ate at house. On the time, all I cared about was reversing my sluggish slide into diabetic territory. What I didn’t know was that the sugar in easy carbohydrates had been driving my must hold consuming, and that decreasing my consumption would assist reset my urge for food.

Even I used to be shocked by what number of easy carbs I used to be consuming. There have been English muffins with plum jam I made myself. The teaspoons of sugar, which towered larger and better as time went on, in every of the 4 cups of espresso after waking up. Brown sugar in oatmeal, wildflower honey on buttered toast, Vermont maple syrup on waffles. Orange, pineapple, grapefruit juice. Croissants, cardamom buns, blueberry muffins, cider doughnuts. Cumulus heaps of white rice at lunch, hunk after hunk of bread with dinner. Cookies to stave off the afternoon naps, which often got here anyway.

It is a partial checklist.

5 months into my sugar reset, I acquired an e mail from my physician containing a beautiful, lyrical phrase: “You're not prediabetic.”

By then I had misplaced greater than 20 kilos, too, however resetting my easy carbohydrate final analysis had ripple results all through my life. The much less sugar I ate, the better it was to eat much less of every little thing else. I used to be not strapped into what nutritionists name the glucose curler coaster, the cycle of sugar highs and deep lows that may result in insulin resistance, wrecking the physique’s capacity to manage starvation.

In the US, and more and more world wide, supermarkets and chain eating places are full of roller-coaster meals that promise ever-more intense flavors and pleasures, however solely depart us wanting extra.

“We’re speculated to really feel satiated and full, and we don’t,” mentioned Ashley Gearhardt, a psychologist on the College of Michigan who research compulsive consuming. “We’re being tricked.”

As I ate much less added sugar and changed refined grains with complete ones, my urge for food shrank, and my howling needs for candy stuff grew to become quieter, simpler to disregard. I had extra vitality and appeared to assume clearly once more for the primary time in years. I had unleashed forces that might make it simpler to place in place all the opposite modifications I’ll cowl within the subsequent few weeks.

“Mainly, you had been consuming much less of meals that inspired you to overeat and extra of meals that don’t try this,” mentioned Marion Nestle, an emerita professor of meals, vitamin and public well being at New York College. “Just about what any smart nutritionist would advise.”

Shift Out of Overdrive <img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" alt="A hunk of sourdough, whole grain pasta and other grains photographed against a pale surface." decoding="async" class="ResponsiveImage_image__zGSfP" width="1365" height="2048" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg-jumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 683w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/05/multimedia/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg/05FD-reset-1-whole-grains-fmlg-superJumbo.jpg?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale 1365w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1160px"/> Credit score... Bobbi Lin for The New York Instances

Nutritionists say that a terrific many individuals eat extra added sugar than they need to. A place to begin is to determine whether or not you’re getting greater than 10 % of your complete energy from added sugar, which ought to be the utmost consumption, in keeping with the federal authorities’s Dietary Pointers for Individuals. (Not like protein, fats and nutritional vitamins, added sugar isn’t essential to our our bodies, so there isn't any beneficial minimal quantity, only a most.)

For the previous 5 years, vitamin labels on packaged meals have been required to checklist the quantity of added sugars. They will journey underneath many aliases, together with some that sound innocent and perhaps even healthful: evaporated cane juice, agave nectar, fruit juice focus and brown rice syrup.

For me and for many individuals, there’s little purpose to fret concerning the sugars naturally present in vegetables and fruit, the place they're packaged with different issues that make it easier to really feel full sooner and decelerate the absorption of glucose into the blood. Candy potatoes are known as candy potatoes for a purpose, however I don’t assume twice about consuming one for dinner as a result of they’re pretty light on the blood sugar, particularly when boiled and served of their skins.

I would as nicely admit that chief among the many “different issues” that make it easier to really feel full are what nutritionists insist on calling fiber, a phrase so off-putting that it makes me need to search solace within the arms of the closest cinnamon bun. Fortunately, on the subject of easy carbs like rice and flour, we are able to use the much less lumpish phrase “complete grains” to explain the identical basic concept. And that is what to search for in the event you discover you eat an excessive amount of white rice and white bread. Complete grains occur to have extra taste, too.

That is the center of my first reset: consuming carbohydrates of their authentic, sturdy, crunchy, sophisticated kinds. I knew it could be higher for me. And having raised two boys, I in all probability ought to have recognized that going via sugar overdrive many instances a day was not producing probably the most rational conduct.

As my physique adjusted, I finished performing like a toddler at a birthday celebration. My complete weight-reduction plan, every little thing I ate, began to take a brand new form.

Observe New York Instances Cooking on Instagram, Fb, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get common updates from New York Instances Cooking, with recipe recommendations, cooking suggestions and procuring recommendation.