Taming The Sweet Tooth

Diary Entry

Well, the holidays were not terribly kind to your humble scribe. I packed on 10 pounds after reaching my 100-pound milestone, after largely eating my way across Houston while we were down there. Who knew Mexican food was fattening?

That sort of a gain could be a real diet buster ... the sort of thing that makes you just decide to hang it up and get the fat clothes out of storage.

However, I sold all my fat clothes on eBay, and besides, this wouldn't be much of a column if it was just a chronicle of me putting the weight on, would it? I'd have to change the title to "Glutton Chronicles" or something similar.

So instead of moping, I got back to work. I'm pleased to report that as of last Saturday, I had taken off the 10 pounds, plus two more. Quickly gained weight always seems to come back off quickly, but the trick is to make sure you DO jump on it quickly, rather than waiting and letting it get comfy around your waistline and decide it likes the neighborhood.

My target for the end of this year is to get down below 300 pounds. That's a pretty ambitious target, since I know it's going to get harder and harder to lose the smaller I get, but I'd rather try for a tough goal and miss it than set an easy target and not get the full feeling of accomplishment for hitting it. Once I get to 300, I'll sit down with my doctor and make a plan for what my ultimate goal weight will be. Hopefully, my muscle mass will continue to increase, and I'll be able to work on the basis of body fat percentage as well as total weight. We shall see.

Sweet Stuff

I am not, as a general rule, a sweets fiend. Candy and cake didn't get me where I am today nearly as much as mass quantities of meat and potatoes in various combinations. However, when my sweet tooth does wake up and holler, it could take upward of a pint of ice cream to shut it up. That's excessive, even if the ice cream in question is one of the many fine "no sugar added" or "light" varieties on the market, so I had to resort to rank trickery.

My best trick is to give into the craving ... just a little bit. I buy a bar of really good chocolate. I'm not talking about your average convenience-store bar or one you snag in the grocery-store checkout line; I mean really quality stuff like Ghirardelli or Scharffen-Berger or something you get at a chocolatier. I then break said bar into bite-sized pieces, put them in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer.

When the craving strikes, I take one piece of the chocolate out of the bag and let it melt slowly on my tongue. I try not to do anything else while this goes on, just concentrating on the taste of the chocolate and enjoying the experience. I've been told by some female friends that really good chocolate is better than sex, and you wouldn't unload the dishwasher while you were in the middle of that, would you?

By the time the chocolate melts away, the craving monster has been tamed and equilibrium has been restored.

Another great thing to sock away in the freezer is frozen grapes. A super-sweet red or green grape in frozen form can be a miniature sugar bomb that will blast your sweet craving into oblivion.

There are also some really excellent "diet" ice cream treats out there. My personal favorites right now are the Healthy Choice caramel ice cream sandwiches and the Skinny Cow chocolate or peanut butter cookie sandwiches. I honestly can't taste where the calories or fat have been cut, but they have been. You all know I'm an ice cream snob of the first order, and you can believe me when I tell you these things are good.

Avoidance is yet another strategy that helps break the sweet cycle. Say it's a weekday evening, after dinner, and I'm sitting in front of my computer looking like I'm writing. However, if you looked at my screen, you'd see that I'd typed, Jack Torrance-like, "All veg and no sweet makes Scott a dull boy" about 500 times. That's when I get up and get the heck out of the house. I slap on my Nikes and go for a walk, or go to the garage and tackle one of the several thousand projects that are always pending. The important thing is distraction.

These are just a few suggestions. You know best how your own mind works, and can come up with more ideas to keep your face out of that can of cake frosting. Got a great idea you'd like to share? Let me know!

Got a question? Comment? Brag? Topic you'd like to see covered? Drop me a line, anytime!