Jackie Wells-Fauth
I have written on this subject before and before you say it: Yes, I know, there are worse addictions. But when I consider that my snacking habits are connected to my health, I know it’s time to take it seriously—so to speak.
I decided that now would be a good time to see if I could rein in my rampant snacking habit, so I looked for some advice. “I control my eating simply by writing down everything that I am eating,” a friend suggested. “That way, when I see what I am eating, I will always slow down or cut back.”
It sounded as though it was an idea with merit. So, here is the journal I kept of my snacking:
8:02 am – Had a delicious breakfast consisting of oatmeal and coffee.
8:30 am – The oatmeal was lumpy and the coffee was cold, so I rewarded myself with a cupcake…I slathered on the frosting because, well, I needed to get over the trauma of breakfast!
9:10 am – Feeling a little empty, so I went to get a graham cracker. I ate the afore-mentioned graham cracker…okay, so I had a package of graham crackers. Oh, all right, all right, I had a BOX of graham crackers! But that should hold me until lunch.
10:05 am – I had lunch a little early. I ate a sandwich and a few chips…and then some more chips.
10:45 am – I ate a banana…okay, then I ate another banana…I know you think I’m going to say I ate the whole bunch of bananas, but you’re wrong, I didn’t. There is still one left!
11:00 am – I finished the chips, but it didn’t count, because they were all in little pieces. Everybody knows that you can’t count chips or cookies that are in pieces.
11:10 am – Stomped on the Oreo package and then shoveled them in with a spoon. As I said, it doesn’t count.
I could go on and on with this tale and tell you about the three bowls of Rice Krispies I had with lots of milk and sugar, or about the rest of the frosting from the cupcakes, which I licked off the tops of five of them and then finished off what was in the container. However, I comforted myself with the knowledge that at least I didn’t eat the cupcakes!
I’m sure you get the point by now. It did me absolutely no good to write down what I was eating. Contrary to slowing me down, it simply helped me to rationalize that if I ate the frosting but not the cupcakes, I was entitled to a reward, which was a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich—topped with every kind of luncheon meat I could find.
Thinking about food obviously plays a big part in the life of a snack addict. I don’t watch cooking shows because while I wouldn’t go and cook the items on the screen, it would give me some ideas for other things I could eat.
I cannot walk by cookies, pies, chips, or toaster strudels without trying to reason why I should be able to eat them. As for Twinkies and Ho Hos, they are the work of the devil and I sell my soul for them whenever I can!
This is a continuous process. We went to the latest Jurassic movie the other night and all I could think of while that tyrannosaurus rex was chomping on person after person was, “Man, no wonder he has such a big belly. He’s taking in a ridiculous amount of calories! I mean, a whole human being in one bite, what a pig!” I may have missed the point of that movie.
Now you can see that, like the tyrannosaurus rex, I have a serious eating problem, but at least I’m not eating people! And indeed that was me, justifying the fact that I should be allowed to eat sweets as long as I’m not devouring humans!
I don’t see a cure in the future. I have thought about contacting the tyrannosaurus rex and starting a snacks anonymous group and I may get around to doing that; right after I’m done finishing off this package of pieces of cookies from the Keebler Elves!
dropsinthewell 