When do I get to be bad? When do I get to dive into sugars and fats without feeling like I’m chopping off years or adding inches? When do I get gobble up samples in the store, and eat three pounds of sausages at go or only bread and pickle for a week like the woman in the poem Warning? (1)
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with food. I love eating it but I hate gaining weight. As the years pass, my willpower is slipping. I want to gobble up the great desserts at our restaurant.
Take pizza. I love pizza. It used to be our Friday night ritual. At first, we splurged on delivery, but then we switched to DIGIORNOs. Since our community fee includes one meal a day, the Friday night pizza habit vanished. Pizza gets a bad rap, but I’m sure it’s healthier than my favorite lemon Italian cake dessert. Plus, a fellow resident swears, “Pizza is the perfect food, it has all the nutrients of breast milk.” (see Pizza, the Perfect Food) Eeww, maybe that’s why we stopped our pizza habit.
Medical websites love to remind me that those extra pounds are a killer, speeding up osteoarthritis. And it's not just the weight on your joints; fat's an "active tissue that drives inflammation." (2) Now I can’t stop picturing a lump of fat driving in a car.
I tried to lose weight. For two weeks I was a saint. No desserts and WW (Weight Watcher’s) zero-point soup for lunch. But the soup takes ½ hour to make – and even longer to clean up. It’s easier to grab an 11-point frozen enchilada (20 points is my daily WW quota). Besides, I flunked WW several years ago.
I’ve got mental tricks. I love Dove Minis. When I grab one I sing to myself “All you need is One, do-do-do-do-do. All you need is one. One. One is all you need." That works half of the time. But sometimes I say, “Well, I skipped breakfast,” or “I barely ate lunch,” to justify a second mini. Maybe if I sang it 29 times like the Beatles, (3) I’d lose interest in the second mini.
What is it about deciding to lose weight that makes you want to eat more? I lost three pounds, then something in my brain switched and now I’m eating like Scarlett O’Hara: “I’ll never go hungry again.”
It’s easy for women to be weight-obsessed. As the game show America Says points out – ask anyone the seven most common words on a woman’s magazine cover and ‘weight’ is one of them. Even Oprah regrets her Wagon of Fat episode and her role in the Diet Culture. (4)
Our community brags about the Bentley Bulge – people gain weight after moving here. It's not exactly a health slogan. I partially blame our meal system. One meal plan covers as many sides or sweet treats as you want. You can overload with carbs by ordering fries, chips, and onion rings and throw in a baked potato if you are still hungry. Plus two desserts. All for the price of one (meal plan). I dream of a Weight Watchers-style point system, with fried foods and desserts skyrocketing your points. I need a strong incentive to walk away from that mouthwatering lemon Italian cake!
Or maybe charge by weight like the some salad bars. But that could backfire, too. Popcorn weighs less than fruits and veggies, but popcorn isn’t that healthy and lodges into your gums. Speaking of popcorn, did you know one Alaskan moose visits a movie theater to indulge in popcorn, apparently his favorite treat (5)
Sometimes I’d like to ditch willpower and ask for a weight loss drug like Ozempic. But Dr. Rakita Kumar, University of Miami Health, says, "Ozempic is about health, not vanity." She’s annoyed about people wanting those drugs to fit into dresses, and lose vanity weight – that’s not what they are made for. She says nowadays, you can even get weight loss drugs at the hair salon. BMO capital market analyst Simian Sigel says these drugs can be as big an investment as the iPhone. (6)
For me it's about both health and looking good. If I lose ten pounds, maybe my hip pain will vanish, and I’ll never need an artificial part. Plus, I’d like to look better in my clothes.
But while Ozempic changes eating habits drastically, it has some nasty side effects: tiredness, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and vomiting. No wonder you don't feel like eating.
Barring that, I wish I had a magic wand for weight loss. But I’m not Glinda, the Good Witch. So I’ll stick with mental tricks. Recently I grabbed the book, “If My Body Is a Temple, Why Am I Eating Doughnuts?” from the shared library. (7) I love the title, but the scripture-based tips don’t cut it when I’m drooling over that lemon Italian Cake.
I’m waiting for the day when my appetite declines with age. Until then I’ll keep singing “All You Need is One.” and hopefully reach for sugar snap peas (8) or jicama instead of that Dove Mini.
References
Warning, The Gladdest Thing, Jenny Joseph
Love is All You Need, Generative AI (see below)
Ree Hines, Oprah's biggest on-air mistake? The wagon of fat, today,com, October 6, 2011
Moose strolls into Alaska movie theater, eats popcorn, YouTube, Eyewitness News ABC7NY,
How Ozempic, other weight-loss drugs are "changing medicine, CBS Sunday morning, January 21, 2024
Carol L Howell, If my body is a temple, why am I eating doughnuts, Independently published, October 2, 2020
Charlie Story: When we wintered at an RV park in Naples, snap peas were my go-to snack. The neighbor’s dog, Charlie, loved them, too. He’d dash over to get his snap pea treat. He’s the only dog I know who loved snap peas. But Charlie's mom warned me if I fed him too much he’d get diarrhea.
Always on target and amusing - loved it!!!!!!