Wednesday 3 September 2008

Day 20 : Licking the Spoon

Patrick's email today commented on keeping us strict on the diet and not "eating a little extra".

Right at the beginning he said that we weren't to be worried about being 10g over here and there but I have noticed a tendency of mine to lick the spoon. You know, when you've carefully measure out your 150g of yogurt and there is a yogurt covered spoon in your hand.

The PC (or should I say, PCP) thing to do is to WASH the spoon. For those of us with less self-control and/or poorer table manners, the obvious thing to do is to lick it. Boom, another 20g of yogurt consumed (and the most tasty 20g too). Of course, there maybe a few grams of yogurt left sticking to the bowl and even I don't resort to licking my bowl or plate. Well, not usually anyway and not when anyone is looking.

And then there is the last piece question. You weigh out your fruit, vegetables and/or meat ..... and there is ONE piece left. Again, we know what we SHOULD do but it hardly seems worth putting it back in the fridge and my mother's spirit is deeply ingrained (you mustn't waste food, think of all the starving people in the world - although what they have to do with me not eating my food I never did fully understand). So it either gets lobbed onto the plate while we turn away from what the scale says, or we pop it into our mouth so the weight on the plate stays right. Either way, it ends up inside us.

The same thing can be said for that last spoonful of yogurt that always seems to be left at the bottom of the carton.

And a final gap in the strict application of the diet is what I call "the sesame seed syndrome". Do you know that sesame contains more calcium than milk and in a more easily digestible form? Well, I'm a sesame seed junkie and it gets sprinkled onto my rice, vegetables, yogurt and occasionally other things. Now, of course, I am not weighing my sesame seeds and I know they contain oil. But I'm just viewing them as a seasoning, so what the heck.

Come to think about it, there are the spices too. Do they have calories?

3 comments:

Nate said...

That's a good question Tim I didn't give spices a second thought.

Patrick said...

For our purposes spices have no calories. Just watch the salt.

Nuts and seeds are a different matter. A few here and there is no big deal, just don't be scarfing handfuls of them.

Patrick said...

And Tim, for heaven's sake just lick the spoon! Life's too short. By sneaking extra food I meant stuff like an extra bowl of cereal.

Also go ahead and eat the extra piece of fruit. Extra fruit is not a big deal.