It’s my shelter in a storm; my most reliable and trusted companion, the longest and happiest relationship of my life—my love affair with chocolate.
And though I’m willing to put that precious relationship on the line for the sake of my health —and though I know the Choose You program is inspiring women to put their health as a priority—still I have to confess I’m a little confounded that the American Cancer Society chose to start Choose You last week.
This meant coming dangerously close to violating the most sacrosanct rule of Mother’s Day: Mothers are officially required to indulge themselves on the one day that is absolutely guilt-free no matter what they said about cutting back on sugar in a previous post.
It was my son who got me to commit to Choose You. On Mother’s Day, my husband stuck to the program and did NOT buy me any Sees’ candy as he usually does. (I haven’t forgiven him yet for taking me seriously.)
My daughter didn’t get the word in time—and she NEVER forgets a special occasion. She also didn’t forget that I never forgot–or forgave– Mrs. Fields for closing her Carmel store the week we moved here. The day before Mother’s Day, Alli’s package arrived.
No parent wants to crush a child’s feelings by not treasuring their gifts. I still haven’t recovered from giving my dad ties every Father’s Day that he never wore. Though Alli was hundreds of miles away, I consider it my sacred duty as a Mom to fully embrace her gift—in fact I called her immediately because I couldn’t wait so she could share in the moment I took my first bite of her cookie.
I’m using that word kind of loosely; I don’t know if you can tell from the picture– this “cookie” is the size of a pizza.
Which makes this a good time to explain my philosophy about participating in the Choose You program. So far I’ve only discussed sugar. I know it’s bad for my health, still I’m not planning to quit cold turkey. Or completely.
My goal is is to scale down (Scale possibly being my least favorite word in the English language)….to eat sugar sparingly. In moderation. (another word I don’t like in conjunction with chocolate.) I’m not aiming to weigh a certain amount or look a certain way. My goal is to do what I know is healthier; to BE healthier.
I think of cancer prevention not only in terms of physical health—but also emotional and mental health. For me, Choose You is equally important to help me focus over the coming weeks on other areas I want to improve: including stress relief, activity level, and sleep. For health, they’re all part of the total picture….
….which is the perfect segue into this picture—that I took three two days after the cookie arrived.
As bad as it looks, this is probably an improvement from my dalliance with dulce de leche. So moving onto week 2, hopefully I’ve taken a step bite in the right direction.
My daughter, finishing her second year of medical school at Stanford, has spent the last two years lecturing me on the importance of eating FRUITS and VEGETABLES. And because she’s my daughter and I love and admire her, I find that — gasp — I’m LISTENING TO HER. So, for me, it’s working a whole lot better to think of what I might replace sweets with, as opposed to doing away with them, or even cutting back. Every time I want to knosh on something, I try to come up with something good for me. To my surprise, I’ve now been known to eat a bowl of peas, instead of some cookies. Hard-boiled eggs, too. And, of course, the ubiquitous BANANA. I know this makes me sound like a goody-two-shoes, but the truth is that….it’s working. I like sweet green peas! I love fabulous salads. I think juicy, sweet oranges are truly yummy. Yikes!
Everything in moderation…INCLUDING moderation ~Garson Kanin
;-D
Never give up chocolate. Isn’t it one of the basic food groups? Forget moderation. You’ll know you’ve had enough when you pass out from the sugar high (or the stroke). Hell. As sins go, you could do worse. It’s not alcohol! It’s not heroin! It’s not intimate sex with a stranger! It just feels like those things, and with chocolate you don’t suffer such dire consequences.
Sure, eat healthy. Then enjoy dessert.
I’ve purged the house of chocolate and sugar (almost) so I’ve also been sinking to new levels of substitutes. My latest–and seriously even V agrees they are delicious—roasted brussel sprouts. But even though I can appreciate foods that are green and orange and yellow—sometimes I still need to validate what brown can do for you.
And isn’t it amazing to actually LISTEN TO OUR CHILDREN??? How did they get so SMART??
Love this line–you come up with the best quotes!
Ha, that’s exactly what I tell myself, I could have much worse habits or addictions. Especially since they’ve discovered chocolate is actually healthy! Now if they would only discover dulce de leche is healthy too…
The funny thing is that since I learned chocolate is healthy, somehow it doesn’t taste quite as good. But it will always be one of the staples of my diet–and my mental health.
I think we all stress out too much about it all. I agree that everything in moderation is good, but I also think we can stress out about moderation means to the point that the stress in itself is harmful.
Just a thought.
A little confusing that post. I meant that we can stress out about “what moderation” means to the point that the stress itself is more harmful than the chocolate (or wine — or whatever, unless it is heroin).
I get what you mean, and think you’re right that stress often is more harmful than what you’re ingesting. How we handle stress (which we can’t avoid) can be the key to health—otherwise stress contributes to all the other health problems. I always wonder about these people who live to be 110 —but smoke and drink and eat whatever they want all their lives—and somehow they’re relaxed about it. I think it’s good to be mindful of what you eat—but not to the point of making yourself stressed about it. Life is s tressful enough as it is.
Plus food is one of life’s great pleasures, who would want to take away from that?
Do you mean all this time I thought chocolate and I were exclusive and he’s been cheating with you? Oh, well, I guess there’s enough of him to go around. My daughter became a vegetarian about 2 years ago and I haven’t been tempted (yet). On the other hand, whenever she gets stressed, she bakes. She’s a wonderful baker, but only takes a bite or two. What’s a mother to do? I have to support her, right?
OMG — a teenager who bakes during stress? ARen’t they stressed ALL the time? Lucky you=–especially considering all the other things she could be doing when stressed. Definitely you should be a VERY supportive mom.