How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow, for a calorie total of less than 600. On another day this week, eat the meals from a different post, another day of eating 600 calories or less. Eat sensibly the other days of the week. That’s it: a simple way to lose weight and be healthier. Welcome to Officebethlem who is now Following.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. With a moniker like that, what choice does one have but to “make a name for himself.” The man in question was born 16 October, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were a noted and knighted eye specialist and a multi-lingual writer. Both of them had a fervor for social justice. After winning awards at Trinity College, Wilde went to Oxford on a scholarship. There he began to publish his poetry and to practice ‘aesthetics.’ That philosophy embraced a way of life dedicated to beauty, espousing that the sole purpose of life is to live as artfully and as beautifully as possible. After his degree, his volume Poems was published in 1881. Although reviews were mixed, he embarked on a lecture tour of the US and Canada: 140 engagements over nine months. He met elite writers and dined with coal miners. People lined up to hear him: either to heckle [“Mr. Wilde is too effeminate in his appearance to be a handsome man, and he is too masculine to pass for a good looking woman,” wrote a newspaper in Charlottetown, PEI.] or to soak up the idea that they too could surround themselves with beauty. This was followed by a lecture tour of England and Ireland. Thus he made a name for himself, becoming famous for being famous. The public was fascinated by his flamboyant style and outlook on life. At age 30, he married and fathered two sons. All normal so far, but from 1886, his wife was his ‘beard’ in polite society, for, on the side, he was in love with Robert Ross. Wilde was very busy and productive in the following years — he contributed to several newspapers, edited a moribund ladies’ magazine, and wrote two books of tales for children. In 1891, his life changed forever. In that year, Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Grey and met Alfred Douglas. The book scandalized society at the time with its hedonism and its implied homosexuality, but today it is hailed as a fascinating read, and has been made into films. Alfred Douglas was to be Wilde’s downfall. Over the next three years, Wilde dazzled theater-goers with Lady Windemere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. The dialogue was witty and the plots wickedly skewered popular mores. They were a hit. Meanwhile, the Marquess of Queensbury [Alfred Douglas’ father] loathed Wilde and accused him of lewd acts. Wilde sued Queensbury for libel, but when the suit was dropped, the Crown charged Wilde with “gross indecency,” a crime in Victorian England. After two trials, he was sentenced to two years of hard labor in Pentonville Prison and Reading Gaol. The conditions broke him physically and emotionally, and upon his release he went to France where he wrote his famous Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died in Paris of meningitis, drinking a lot and in debt. Robert Ross paid for his burial at Père Lachaise Cemetery, where he commissioned the now-famous headstone of Oscar Wilde.

Our meals are not from Wilde’s native land, which he left; nor from England, which he fled. They are from France, where he sought refuge and finally died in 1900.

Charcuterie Bake:  137 calories 10 g fat 1 g fiber 11.4 g protein 8 g carbs 37 mg Calcium   NB: The food values given above are for the egg bake and fruit only, not the optional beverages.  GF  One Sunday, we invited friends over for what we call a “French Lunch” – bread, sausage, cheese, fruit, wine, and good fellowship. Dear Husband thought, “I know what breakfast will be.” And he was correct: left-overs reborn as breakfast.

One 2-oz egg ½ oz chorizo sausage ½ Tbsp chevre cheese, the creamy type ¼ tsp Dijon mustard pinches of herbes de Provence  1½ oz pear  Optional: blackish coffee [53 calories] or blackish tea or mocha cafe au lait [65 calories]  Optional: 5-6 oz fruit smoothie or berry-yogurt smoothie [88 calories]

Set the toaster oven at 350 degrees F. Cut the sausage into a small dice, then cream it together with the goat cheese, mustard, and herbes. Spritz an oven-proof ramekin/dish with olive oil or non-stick spray. Whisk the egg with the sausage mixture and pour into the dish. Bake for 12-15 minutes while you pour the beverages and slice the pear. As simple as the meal which preceeded it.

Fish Timbale:  276 calories 17 g fat 1.6 g fiber 23.5 g protein 8 g carbs 95 mg Calcium  PB GF Sounds high-falutin’ but really very easy.

1.5 oz mackerel or salmon 1.3 oz haddock or cod ¾ oz egg [either pullet egg or an egg white] 1/3 oz white beans 2 Tbsp cream 2 Tbsp spinach ½ Tbsp shallot 1 oz Swiss chard 1/8 tsp olive oil nutmeg + granulated garlic

Wash the spinach and leave water on the leaves. Put in a lidded pan along with the chopped shallot. Put on the lid and let cook until the spinach is limp. Remove, chop, and squeeze the water out of the spinach. Thoroughly mash the white beans and add the cream. Stir the spinach-shallot into the bean/cream. If fish is raw: Put in a pan with a little water. Cover and steam until fish is cooked. Flake the fish and combine with the other ingredients, except the chard. Turn into a spritzed ramekin and bake at 400 degrees F. for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, coarsley chop the chard and cook it in a little water until done. Drain and season with nutmeg and granulated garlic. Run a knife around the sides of the timbale and invert the plate over it. Turn the plate right-side-up and remove the ramekin. Plate the chard around the fish timbale.