If Foods Were Like Boyfriends, Here’s Who You Should Take Home

A new book reveals the good guys and bad guys of the shopping aisle.

Nutritionist Lyssa Weiss, 44, has a new framework for dieting: “Bad boyfriend” foods are to be avoided; only the “good guy” alternatives are allowed in your shopping cart. She lays it all out in her book,  The Skinny Jeans Diet.  

Bad boyfriend foods vary from person to person—they are whatever makes you unable to control yourself, says Weiss. “My bad boyfriend is chocolate-chip cookies,”  she explains. “I wanted to think I could handle myself around them, and I wouldn’t end up in bed with them like last time. But I always did.”

It sounds like a cute analogy, but Weiss, who runs a private nutrition practice in Armonk and holds a master’s degree in nutrition from Columbia University, is speaking from hard-learned experience—she battled eating disorders and yo-yo dieting before becoming a nutritionist in her late 20s. “We’re focusing on the wrong thing—what we put in our mouth,” she says. “What we should be focusing on is the thoughts we put in our head.”

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 Here, Weiss lays out a few common bad boyfriend foods and their replacements.

Bad Boyfriend: Peanut butter

Good Guy Alternative: PB2 powdered
peanut butter

Peanut butter’s powder alternative is made with just powder, salt, and sugar (you add water), and contains just 45 calories for every two tablespoons (regular peanut butter contains about 190).

Bad Boyfriend: Pasta

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Good Guy Alternative: Nasoya brand
shiratake spaghetti

You can find these tofu-and-yam-flower alternatives at any supermarket. An eight-ounce bag has 40 calories; eight ounces of pasta has 200.

Bad Boyfriend: Frozen ice cream bars

Good Guy Alternative: Yasso brand frozen Greek yogurt bars

Yasso’s frozen Greek yogurt bars have 110 calories and pack eight grams of protein; a
Good Humor bar will set you back 280 calories.

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