Some people have asked me how I started my weight loss. My first few months in the blog archive explain it all.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Ignorance is Blubber


Elder Oaks taught me that in life we are faced with many choices. This morning I re-listened to his talk and found myself wondering about eating choices, some make me fat, some make me thin. Here is one of my strageties I give to you as a Christmas gift - (especially when cookies are delivered to your door daily.)

Good - Do not eat the offending food. This is a great option, however when doing this I find the food item continually on my mind and the desire to eat more of other things to make up for the food I just heroically gave up. By the end of the day I have eaten more calories and fat than the original temptation. In frustration I just eat the earlier scorned food because what can one more bad thing hurt?

Better - Have a small amount of the offending food. This works but can backfire as well. Sometimes I open a flood gate that cannot be shut. For example cake batter, especially yellow cake batter. A small taste is o.k., but the desire to pour into my body the entire contents of the bowl sometimes is too great and I find myself eating spoonfuls of the yellow gold.

Best - Learn about the offending food. If I read ingredients and nutritional content I am better able to resist unhealthy food. When I was a little girl my sisters and I were told grocery store cake frosting was made up of only Crisco and sugar. So simple, Trixie made us a batch! My dad walked in to the room to find us hovering over a bowl of the delicious white stuff. He asked us what we were eating and on discovery he quickly took the bowl and emptied the contents into the trash. We received quite the lecture on health.

That talk stuck into my brain and I find that when I picture a tub of Crisco and the similar look my white pasty thighs take on when faced with a cake I am better able to resist. I can do that with so many food items. I read the nutritional info at Burger King before ordering and found that my favorite burger - the Whopper has 39 grams of fat. With that information I can easily run away in horror. Fries have no allure to me, imagining how I would feel when bathed in grease leads to a picture of my body parts bathed in oil as well. Not wanting either I can order the apple sauce instead.

Lets say I think about cake batter, read the nutritional information, think about what that much sugar does to my joints (ache) and imagine raw eggs coursing through my body (I am not Rocky after all). By the time I think it all through the cake is in the oven and I am safe for awhile. Next thing to work on is the frosting. Wouldn't a nice dusting of powdered sugar be better? How about fat free pudding and a bit of cool whip? Do I really need a stick of butter to swim through my arteries? Can I feel a stroke coming on? You get the picture.

Education is the best. Learning of the foods you eat and don't eat really can help. Ignorance is not bliss, Ignorance is blubber.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

6 comments:

mindyluwho said...

I was in the grocery store the other day, hungry. As I was walking past the bakery section everything was calling to me, even things I would not normally want to eat! Then this thought popped into my head, "If Calamity Jane were here, she would tell me to RUN out of here fast!"

I'm just barely maintaining through the holidays, and am so glad of your wisdom and encouragementthat helps to keep me from gaining 20 pounds!

Carrot Jello said...

Wait...cookies are being delivered to my door daily?
When the heck did that start?
Which door are they delivering them to?

Tara said...

But the kids get an educational break for the holidays, can't we take one too? :)

I've had laryngitis for a full week now, it's wiping me out, but I keep pulling myself out to the sidewalk each morning to run because I haven't been able to lay off of the treats that keep coming.

Yvonne said...

I'm with carrot--no cookies at my door!!! (I guess it's a good thing)

As always, you've given me a lot to think about. I guess I need to do more than think about it, don't I.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas. You have certainly been a great gift for me.

Anonymous said...

Oh sure, give away my secret recipes online. I was going to PUBLISH a book of the best desserts and *that* was the best one ever. (Though I think Oreo took it a step better with a chocolate cookie surrounding it.) I'll have to come up with a better recipe. Hmmm, Crisco and ....

Lia said...

"Ignorance is blubber". What a great line; I'll have to remember that.