Celebrate Food Times, Come On!

So I have some questions about food and celebrations.

A diet can be hard to follow on most days. Most days you are tempted by many things, like the fluffy whip cream atop the Frappuccino that’s served right before your green tea comes to the counter. Or the swirling, lovely plate of pasta spilling over with bouncy, noodley goodness, making your grilled chicken dish look sad. Or really anything in a Panini format, with melty, crispy, lovely cheese. (Man, I’ve been dieting a while.)

But for me, the temptation is always the worst when there is something to celebrate or something to grieve. I don’t really need to spell this out, but to put a finer point on it, it’s anything from the spectrum of birthday cake to a cookie after a bad day. 

These occasions make avoiding temptation particularly hard because they come with something else that is delicious. Justification. 

“You’re only thirty once.”

“It’s Easter.”

“It’s just a little graduation cake.”

“I deserve this after the day that I’ve had.” 

“It’s a full moon.”

And those excuses have a point. What’s the problem with a little something decadent every once in a while? 

I have a decent-sized family, and we all live about half an hour’s drive from each other. This includes my parents, my two siblings, their spouses, and their children. So birthdays alone take up eleven out of twelve months. Then there are holidays, my anniversary, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. That’s not counting Monday holiday cook-outs and major life events such as graduations, promotions and big announcements. 

Pepper in the occasional bad days. And soon “every once in a while” turns into “every now and again,” and then eventually to “more often than not.” 

So, it serves to reason that I have to re-think how I handle “special occasions.” I’m really looking at four options here. I can white knuckle it. Have a similar sweet alternative.  Have a small amount of the special food. Or the more likely fourth option: indulge like I used to.  Let’s break down every scenario.

“White knuckling.” I have done this. And I am ok at it. It helps that my family knows my food decisions and doesn’t expect or pressure me to enjoy dessert. But it is still really hard. Sometimes I have to have something obstruct my view of the dessert. I can’t make eye contact with it. Its presence nags in the background of my brain. I’m not gonna lie; making conversation even gets hard. 

So then there is the “sweet alternative.” This usually looks like fruit or a small piece of good dark chocolate and sometimes both. This does distract my mouth and mind a bit. But it’s only a small consolation amid the plunging of forks into fluffy cake or the diving of spoons into gentle mounds of ice cream. (I really have to stop describing food.) 

Then there is the option of” indulging a little”. This isn’t a bad idea. I could keep the portion small and enjoy the little that I have. But when are the “small portion” indulgences too frequent? I mentioned that there are a lot of reasons to indulge. When do I decide indulging is truly justified? Is it the occasion, or the time that has lapsed from the last indulgence? 

I don’t actually have an answer here. But I do know in each of these scenarios, I feel like a loser. I feel like, “What’s wrong with me that I can’t handle this situation? Why I can’t handle eating dessert and looking the way I’m supposed to.” Or “Why  can’t I abstain from dessert without obsessing?” And if I do enjoy dessert I feel like a failure. I just feel like something is wrong with me that, when faced with the simple question of “Dessert?” I don’t have a clear answer.

Will this always be a struggle? Will I ever be able to get through these get-togethers without the anxiety-ridden questions surrounding frosting?

When I started cutting out the cake-eating from these special events, I realized it was one of my favorite parts of the get-together. This paints me in a lovely light, I know. But I love food. The crumb of a well made cake or the joy of a scratch-made frosting warms my heart. I just wish that enjoying the cake wasn’t always mingled with guilt and confusion.

 And I love to bake! Creating, experimenting, the beautiful fluffiness of sugar creamed in butter – am I to no longer create in this way? And if I do continue to express myself in baking, am I not supposed to eat it?

But then again, the struggle with my weight has been life-long. Maybe I need a drastic shift in how I think about the “joys in life” I feel I am entitled to. I don’t know if I am ready for that.

I feel like I need a structure that allows for some small treats but has an electric fence to keep me from going too far.

So what do you do? I don’t really have answers here. 

So tell me, what do you do? When is indulging ok? Where are the parameters? 

In short, when and how much cake is ok?