No, the image has nothing to do with the post. Sometimes you just need something fuzzy.
So, I'm trying to diet again. As mentioned, no Coke. And I suppressed urgent doughnut and chocolate milk cravings today. And got the duck potstickers and wokked broccoli for lunch, instead of the Fried Chicken Bits. (I don't remember what they're called.)
Actually, the fried chicken wouldn't have been forbidden on the current step of my (self-declared) diet, because it's currently all about reducing sugar, to be followed by reducing simple carbohydrates. Fried meat will come later. Reducing buttered vegetables might never happen, because, really, there's only so much butter that can cling to a piece of cauliflower, unless you carve the vegetable and use it as a spoon. Or increase the butter's clinging potential by beating it into a nice hollandaise. I'm eagerly leaping on the Oops, Maybe Fat Wasn't That Bad After All bandwagon. Partly because I believe it, and partly because I want to believe it.
I'm anxious. I use food to counter anxiety. Every time I go on a diet, something makes me nervous, and I eat in order to knock down the anxiety in order to deal with the something. I only recently realized that this adds up, in the end, to valuing every single one of those worries over my health. I'm not young enough to do that any more. It's time to find anxiety management that doesn't involve chocolate milk or doughnuts. Being unemployed, or broke, or looking stupid, or any of the zillion silly things I worry about, are all still better than being dead.
Now, I can tell myself that the deadness isn't that likely anytime soon, but neither are the other things. And the deadness is going to come someday (barring download of my brain into a Cylon body), and what I do now does presumably have a statistically plausible impact on how far away "someday" is.
But I still really want a chocolate croissant.
Image: By Fir002/flagstafffotos. Wikimedia Commons.
I am forever weighing up how much I am increasing my chances of getting breast cancer by drinking most nights - just a glass of wine, but most nights. On balance I think it is still worth it, but I do wonder sometimes, also from the perspective of wishing to ward off deadness.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling. In addition to the sugar issue, one of my puzzles is whether my massive salt consumption is going to raise my blood pressure to an explosive level.
ReplyDeleteBut the wine does sound more puzzling, because there are ways that it's supposed to be good for you, right? At least I know that nobody out there is *recommending* that the average person consume more sugar or salt.