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. Join me in the Fasting Lifestyle.

These days, the art of John Constable is beloved in his native land — his 1821 The Hay Wain, at left, was voted most popular painting in the UK. But in his own day, not so much. Constable was born in Suffolk in 1776, and hardly ever strayed from there. His father was prosperous, trading in coal and milling grain. Although his father wanted John to take over his business, the young man had other ideas. In his youth, he was taught to paint by a local amateur or two and became enamored with the process. When he was 23, his father paid for his training at the Royal Academy Schools. Three years later, Constable’s father granted permission for his son to be a painter. As an artist, Constable was a bit of a rebel. The art public wanted to see heroic scenes from history — he gave them scenes of country life. Most artists worked in a studio — he painted outside, en plein aire. Nevertheless, Constable’s work was acceptable enough to be exhibited at the Academy every year until his death. His happy marriage to Maria Bicknell produced seven children, but ended after 12 years with Maria’s death. The artist traveled a bit — to the Lake District, and around southern England, yet his art went farther afield. Three of his landscapes were exhibited by the French Salon in 1824, earning a Gold Medal and great acclaim. His work inspired French artists like Millet and Delacroix to paint from nature. Most of Constable’s paintings were commissioned and sold in France. The curious thing about his ‘paint from nature’ art is that he painted not what he saw but what he remembered. These were scenes of childhood rambles through the Stour Valley. It is a landscape inhabited and built upon by humans — mills, cottages, locks — but it does not show the heavy industry that was actually encroaching on that country-side during the time. His work was nostalgia for how the landscape used to be: a bucolic, simpler England that is depicted today on chocolate boxes and biscuit tins. No doubt that is why Constable’s art is so popular today.

Our breakfast is based on a poem by John Keats, a contemporary of Constable and a fellow Romantic. The dinner is French-inspired, to honor the nation that truly appreciated Constable’s work during his lifetime. He died on March 31, 1837, in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution.

Porphyro’s Picnic:  252 calories… 6 g fat… 6 g fiber… 6.5 g protein… 53 g carbs… 128 mg Calcium…  NB: Food values given are for the plated foods only, and do not include the optional beverage. —PB GF– This is based on the foods described by Keats in his romantic poem The Eve of St Agnes. The meal is rather sweet [key to a teenage girl’s heart!] despite its low calorie count. Due to the sweetness, it needs some other taste to cut it: black coffee? Full of fiber, this meal is sure to kick-start your tally of fruits/vegetables for the day.

++ 2 Tbsp lowfat Vanilla yogurt +++ 2 Tbsp almond meal ++++ 2 oz apple, diced ++++ 2 oz melon, cubed ++++ ¼ cup pitted plums [I used canned plums in light syrup, drained and rinsed], use fresh if in season ++++ 2 tsp cider syrup [or use 2 tsp syrup from the plums] +++ ¼ tsp ground cinnamon, or omit the syrup ++++ ¼ oz Deglet Noor date, cut in 4 pieces. ++++  Optional: coffee or tea ONLY if it is nearly black 

Stir the yogurt and almond meal together and spoon onto the center of the plate. Chop the apple, cube the melon, and arrange them around the almond cream, along with the plums. Place pieces of date at random. Combine the cider syrup with the cinnamon and drizzle it over the apple and melon. All set to eat and you still have 48 calories left over for a beverage. Not responsible for what happens if you eat this by moonlight on January 20.

Seafood Galettes: 269 calories… 7 g fat… 3 g fiber… 18 g protein… 19 g carbs…  142 mg Calcium…  PB This recipe is a terrific idea for a quick meal – IF you have Bechamel sauce and galettes in the freezer.  HINT: This recipe makes enough to serve 2 [two] people.

++ 7 oz Ahi tuna fillet OR mixed seafood, cooked and cut in ½” bits ++++ 1 wedge Laughing Cow cheese  ++++ 2 buckwheat galettes ++++ 6 Tbsp bechamel sauce without cheese ++++ 2-3 Tbsp fish stock ++++ 1.5 oz cauliflower florets ++++ 1 oz carrot ‘coins’ ++++ 2 oz zucchini slices ++

If your tuna isn’t cooked, poach it gently in fish stock – enough to come half-way up the fillet. Reserve the stock as you will use some of it later. Cut the fish into small chunks. Gently heat and whisk the bechamel with 2 Tbsp fish stock and the cheese until the cheese melts. Add the fish/seafood to the sauce, adding more stock if you wish. Prepare the vegetables and begin to cook them. Warm the galettes, wrapped in tea towel, in the microwave. When the fish and sauce are warm and the vegetables are cooked, plate the vegetables and place the galette on the plate too. Divide the fish and sauce between the two galettes and serve. Delicious!