"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
from the Lord's Prayer
"I need to lose weight!" If I have said this once, I have said it to myself a million times since my last "new year's resolution." I am not hopelessly far from the weight I would love to be, but no matter how many "resolutions" I make, I keep failing to reach my desired goal! Often, I seem to be powerless over my intake of food especially in the evenings!
Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) tells those addicted to alcohol that the first step to recovery is to be able to say, "I am an alcoholic!" That revolves around the truth that if you can name it, you can fix it. OK, let's cut to the chase! I do not have a drinking problem, but "I do have an eating problem!"
Take Off Pounds Sensibly (T.O.P.S) used to tell those addicted to food that the first step to recovery is to be able to say, "It's not what you eat, it's what's eating you!" That revolves around the truth that if you can name why you eat so much, you can fix it. OK, let's cut to the chase! Being hungry may be near the bottom of the real reasons I eat most of the time! I realize that there could be something eating at me!
I may get around to admitting the real reasons why I eat when I am not really hungry, but I'll save that for the end of this essay. First, let me get this out of the way - my usual convenient list of people and situations that I conveniently blame for my weight gains.
(1) I have no problem most of the day resisting eating. My problem starts with dinner. Once I start eating, my eating becomes an "all you can eat buffet" till bedtime and sometimes beyond! I mostly blame TV food commercials that start about 5:00 pm every day. That's when I like to start watching TV and that's when I most often become a victim of the power of suggestion. I seem to be able to resist salty items like potato chips, pretzels, pizza and nuts, but cookies, candy, cake, ice cream, doughnuts and pastries are another story! If I had to pick my poison, it would be definitely be "sweets!"
(2) I blame the Kroger Company for building a store in my backyard! They have another Kroger store about two miles down the road on Poplar Level, so why did they have to build one just outside my back door other than to torture me? I can actually hear "sweet things" calling my name all day and most of the night! Even if I resist their flirting when I am in the store, it is just too easy not to walk back over after having "second thoughts" about that half-gallon of pistachio ice cream or that box of cherry turn-overs on sale when I get back home! Kroger has ways to "get you hooked," like offering a free bag of Oreo cookies by e-mail every month or two to their faithful customers. They call them "Friday Freebies." I am convinced that this is their version of giving free cigarettes to addicted smokers when they are trying to quit!
(3) I have grown to associate evening eating with "rewards." After a long day, especially after slaving over a hot altar all day, I like to reward myself with food. As a single person, eating is my way of patting myself on the back for a job well done! If I don't do it, who will? I deserve to be appreciated, don't I? Maybe if I lived with more people. I wouldn't have to reward myself all the time!
(4) I have started the strange habit of associating eating with exercise. The most effective exercise I get after 5:00 pm is walking - walking back and forth to the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets! Don't laugh! I have been known to eat much of a pound bag of M&Ms one handful at a time. That many trips is a lot of exercise in my book!
(5) I have grown to associate eating with denial. In Kroger, I have been known to put a apple pie back on the table and pick up an angel food cake in it's place because I can easily convince myself that all it is egg whites and maybe just a spoon full of flour. That way, I can take it home, eat the whole cake and call it breakfast without an ounce of guilt!
OK, now that I have admitted to my temptations to blame outside factors and have admitted to my temptations to create imaginary flimsy excuses, let me share with you some of the effective things I could do, and have done, about too much evening eating.
(1) Stop the temptation at its source! Leave it in the store! Don't bring it into the house and you won't have to resist it.
(2) One of the advantages of living alone is that you can control what, and how much, food you buy. If you know you are going to "cave in," buy the small single serving size. Never ever buy the large bag of M&Ms, even if they are giving them away - for free! Never ever buy a half-gallon of ice cream, even if it is on sale! Buy one small-sized candy bar or one plain single serving ice-cream on a stick.
(3) Journal your food intake. Write before you eat. Try to talk yourself out of it as you write. Keep track of all that you have actually consumed, not just the things you can easily remember. If conveniently forgetting is a problem, check the garbage cans for wrappers! Try to monitor why you want to eat? Is it real hunger, is it just habit or is something else eating you?
(4) Be honest with yourself. Remember that an angel food cake is not just egg whites, it has quite a bit of sugar! For God's sake, a whole angel food cake is not a "single serving!" Even if it comes unsliced, it can be sliced!
(5) Feel your hunger and then replace a harmful choice with a healthy choice. When you are hungry between meals, an apple is always a much better choice than a cookie or a candy bar and it takes you longer to eat it.
(6) Never watch the food channel on TV, never subscribe to a cooking magazine and never ever pick up one of those free food magazines with the delicious photos on the cover and leave it laying around the house!
(7) Weigh in at least once a week. Encourage yourself whatever the scale says. Never call yourself a "fat pig!" That will just make you hungrier than ever and make you crave food all the more! That's probably how pigs ended up becoming fat pigs. They became victims of their own self-fulfilling prophecies!
(8) Beware of free food! My Kroger gives away a food item almost every week called "Friday Freebies." Lately, it has ben a bag of Oreo cookies. I always take my "Friday Freebie" cookies, but I look for a woman with kids hanging off her basket or an elderly person whose cart has only the bare basics and I offer them my "Friday Freebies" before I leave the store. I keep looking until someone takes my offer! I do not leave the store until I am rid of those cookies!
(9) Girl Scouts often set up tables at the entrances or exits at my grocery store. Instead of buying the Girls Scout cookies and taking them home, I pay for them and then tell the girls that they have to eat them for me.
10) Give yourself permission to watch some "brainless" TV (even some "news" channels now fall into this category), but do it with the stipulation that you have to be on the treadmill instead of sitting in a recliner! If you really want to be heroic, get rid of the recliner and the side table that holds food bowls! When the chair is not "too" comfortable for "too" long, that helps you resist becoming a "couch potato" .
(11) If none of this works, I will just put this problem on my list of "unsolvable problems:" problems like why little strange lights come on without explanation on the dash board of my car, why it is nearly impossible to put a stop to robocalls on my cell phone or why it is so hard to cancel that magazine subscription I bought from one of my nieces back when she was in high school!
(12) Last of all, if all else fails, to avoid temptation I guess I could try going to bed early - maybe 5:00 pm before the food commercials go into high gear! After all, I am old and turning in early is not unusual for someone my age!
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