Diet & Wisdom Appetizers

“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God.” Romans 14:17-18

We live in a country that is fixated on food. Fast food restaurants dot every other corner. Mini marts, grocery stores and Super Wal-Marts are strategically located so we’re never more than a five-minute trip at any given time from readily available food staples and junk food. Food dominates the majority of television commercial ads along with the requisite diet products and/or weight loss centers and pills interspersed so we get a fair balance of temptation versus guilt and condemnation.

Our holidays are centered largely on what type of foods will be served. It begins with Halloween and doesn’t let up until just after Easter. Just when we think we’ve run out of holiday treats we’re faced with graduation parties, summer barbecues and 4th of July picnics looming on the horizon. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle!

Most of us wake up each day thinking about food and planning our daily meals and snacks only to lay our heads down at night suffering the ill effects of mass-consumption and over-indulgence. Oh wait … is that only me?

It’s not just the holidays that have us focusing on food. We as a society tend to liberally sprinkle our conversations with food comparisons and analogies. Pregnant women have buns in the oven. If you’re a clumsy oaf you’re a Butterfingers. If you’re a show-off you’re a hot dog. People are full of baloney and so disgustingly nice they’re syrupy sweet. We call each other little nicknames like Cupcake, honey bun, pumpkin or less flattering names such as sucker, doughboy and meathead. We name our pets after snack goods like Oreo, Snickers, Hershey, Cookie and Twinkie.

We categorize and label people and body parts after foods. She’s got a pear-shape or an apple body. My neighbor looks like an egg with legs. She has muffin tops in her bra and a sausage roll hanging over her belt. He’s got a beer gut and a pancake butt. That guy has a melon-shaped head or cauliflower ears. She’s got calves like ham-hocks and her thighs bear a striking resemblance to turkey drumsticks. But at least her bread dough tummy hangs over far enough to cover those! And my personal favorite because it strikes so close to home, the children were moderately entertained by that stuff hanging from Aunt Edna’s upper arms. They played with it like they were wrestling over taffy in a pull contest!

I’m not immune from these constant food references myself. The other day, a friend asked me to help them with a project by telling me, “You can handle it – It’ll be a piece of cake for you.” All I could think of was, “Oooh, I hope it’s yellow cake with chocolate icing!”

Last week, my co-worker was helping me to update a program on my computer and told me I needed to delete my cookies. Being the computer illiterate that I am, first I was outraged that no one told me I had cookies in my computer! My anger quickly vanished as I ran my hands over my monitor and hard drive looking for a hidden trap door so I could sample my hidden cookies! BTW, that’s just plain mean of technology experts to label junk mail and Spam after something as delectable as cookies. (And while we’re on the subject, that Spam stuff is not a bad canned meat if you lightly sauté it first.)

I was at a gathering where someone was talking about a business proposal and they commented that “Dollars to donuts, that’s a smart business move.” My eyes instantly glazed over (yes, as in glazed donuts) and all I could think about was colored sprinkles on frosted donuts. My daughter mentioned she had Mounds of homework to tackle and I started lusting over coconut candy covered in rich, dark chocolate. My friend’s baby has learned how to blow Kisses and I started hoping she’d blow some my way, preferably the ones with almonds inside. (But not the caramel kind, because I don’t care for those.)

I mean – seriously … what is wrong with me?

Is it really just the holiday season and DAILY gift baskets that arrive at home or work tempting me with delectable treats that are all screaming to be devoured? Perhaps it’s the imminent threat of New Year’s a mere two weeks away reminding me that … bumm, bumm, bumm … it’s nearly time for the annual weight loss resolution! Or is there really something fundamentally wrong with my brain that I think about food constantly? Am I the only one?

I’ve got food on my mind constantly – either I’m thinking about what I’m hungry for, or trying to convince myself that I really don’t need to eat an entire sleeve of crackers while I’m cooking dinner. I’m certain my mother must have possessed an abnormally healthy appetite while she was pregnant with me. The mere fact that I was born six weeks prematurely speaks to my nature about hating to be late for anything, especially mealtimes. Is it any wonder I’m a closet snack junkie?

But I refuse to take the blame for my junk food habits all on my own. The universe is sending us mixed messages, for gosh sakes! One minute we’re bombarded with advertisements about ab-toners, home gyms, stair-steppers, diet pills and body briefs that camouflage our cellulite and muffin tops. Then we’ll get a glut of commercials for restaurants, holiday M&Ms and Christmas Kisses that play holiday tunes as if they were hand bells. There are promos for cooking shows, challenges and competitions. Not to mention the slew of commercials for snack foods that promise us eternal happiness, guarantee long life and ultimately, Hostess of the Year. Please universe – back off! Mother Nature, Father Time and Mr. Gravity are sending enough conflicting signs and messages to keep us in a confused state of exhaustion for the rest of our days.

As with anything, I know there must be balance, but it’s soooooo hard to find that balance in a food obsessed society. For now, I’m endeavoring to retrain my thinking and filter my own food comparison/dominated conversations. Thankfully, I’m finally past trying to figure out how cookies got in my computer and I’m over that whole Spam thing, cause let’s face it … does anyone really know what that gelatinous goo is that they can that stuff in?

I’ve officially started my countdown to New Year’s and yet another attempted New Year’s weight loss resolution. It will take a Herculean effort to keep from eating my weight in Christmas cookies and fudge between now and then. Seeing as how the average person gains between 7-10 pounds between Halloween and New Year’s, it will take more than just effort on my part. Because as I may have mentioned before, I’ve been known to do my part when it comes to keeping that statistic accurate.

It’s nice to fantasize about a perfect world where no one ever goes to bed hungry. And it doesn’t hurt to dream of bodies that allow us to eat all we want without ever gaining a pound. A world where double chins, saggy breasts, dimpled knees and cellulite are non-existent. Oh wait, I think such a magical place may already exist. Hmm … you say, where? It’s called … Heaven!

Merry Christmas one and all! Let us not forget that Jesus is the real reason for the season!

Thank you Father for the joy of sharing the season of Christ’s birth. Thank you for those friends that feel the need to express their sentiment with delicious treats. Help me to remember that treating myself once in a while is okay but help me remember that there must be moderation and balance in order to be successful in anything – especially weight loss. Apart from you, Lord, I can do nothing! Amen.