Thursday, September 22, 2005

sweet tooth

I have a confession to make. . . . I have the most wicked sweet tooth and its gotten me into a lot of trouble, i still carry around in my head several silver amalgam fillings courtesy of good, old Dr. Reilly in Hamilton -- i didn' t know what floss was as a child and i used to neglect brushing and i had no parental guidance in this area - so i would scrape the gunge off my teeth with my fingernails while i watched TV. . which my 'now self' finds apalling and if dwelt upon long enough nausea may ensue. Trips to 'the doc' - and there were many - always meant fillings. . (they seemed not to have sealants back then, or floss), they meant reading the Bugs Bunny comics while the freezing took effect and always a chance to choose a glorious bauble from the 'treasure box'!! *that would of course turns my wrists or fingers green, but that just added magic to the item - cuz i didn't know that meant it was cracker jack box cheap!!! * Anyway, after the office visit my mother would take me and my sisters (she always did a 3-fer while she was at it) to the restaurant right next to the dental office. Its name eludes me. . . but i always wondered why she would buy us lunch when our lips and cheeks were numbed beyond belief and we all drooled like teething babies? Maybe she did this on purpose so that we wouldn't cost her too much $$???!!! It also seems quite strange to take freshly fluoridated molars and get them all gunked up with food immediately after being cleaned???!

Anyway, speaking about all those 'sweet somethings' have also left their mark in the form of subcutaneous body fat. . it seems like the preferred areas are the derriere and the gut. . that is where twinkies magically metabolize into junk in the trunk. . 'dunlop disease' (it done lop over my belt). . even just the aroma of baked goods would begin the fat cells in there multiplying!!! So, how do you stand a chance with this kind of history?

So, I grew up this way, call it conditioning, call it programming. . whatever. . its just an addiction that i have had to fight my whole life. grrrrrrr. . . . my sisters know what i'm saying. . and maybe some of you too?! If you had examined the bags of groceries coming into my childhood home on a Saturday morning, you would find all kinds of goodies: "Florida orange cake", bear claw pastries, 'swiss rolls', date turnovers, packaged cookies, boxed cheesecake mixes, cake mixes, 5 minute fudge mix, pies, tarts, mille feuilles pastries, chelsea buns. . . I feel sick!!! That was for my parents -- we had CANDY!!! tons and tons of it. . every kind you can remember, plus we ate ice cream and our Nana would bring us donuts, cookies. . . Sunday night suppers were comprised entirely of sweets. . jam tarts, cinnamon buns -- i kid you not - roast beef dinner for lunch and desserts only for supper. .

We ate other things too, of course. . but there was a familial addiction. My parents also had an addiction to radishes, which they ate by the bag -- do you wanna know about gas?! WOAH!!! There was also their potato chip shame . . they bought industrial-sized drums of these. I didn't get a grip on it until i became a teenager and realized when i had lunch at school or ate over at friend's houses, that other families did not eat like this. We used to get sick all the time. . we had a lot of skin infections and stomach problems. . I guess my Nana told our mother to give us cod liver oil. . So one day our mother came in the kitchen with this jar of what I can only describe as fishy-smelling contact cement. She would make us line up and give each of a whopping spoonful of this taffy-like, day-at-the-wharf smelling crap. We gagged and retched. We got to the point where we tried to avoid those times of the day when she would get out the spoons. . . finally, thank the good Lord she gave up on that nonsense. . . as if a spoonful of fish product goo could atone for feeding your children garbage food?

Anyway. . . i've left the past. . bodily and nutritionally. I''ve camped out in the land of skim milk yogurt, whole grain products of various types, raw vegetables, lean meats, sprouts, fruit that isn't packed in syrup and I have overcome the terrible habits of my childhood, or have i???

What do you think i always want after eating my la de da nutritious food? sweet crap
What do you think i crave when i see food commercials on TV? not the Wendy's chicken ranch sandwich that the dark-haired guy with the outspoken, raucous, cowboy-hat-wearing 'ranch tooth' wants. . ."RAAAAAANCH!" My tooth wears a beret and a string of pearls and yells "FUDGE BROWWWWWWNIES!"
What do you think is the first thing i turn to when i'm under stress or emotionally upset? chocolate. .
What do i go for when i'm on the job and lonely and bored outta my skull typing for 8 hours alone trapped in the house?! with only a snoring poodle under the bed for company. . . I think about eating mini oreos. . not a lot, but some.
What do you think i would choose for seconds if i have the room? not meat. . not spuds. . . PIE!
sure i might eat only the filling if the pastry isn't good. . but if it is, i'll eat the whole piece.
Why do these kinds of foods call out to me? A pie cannot just sit on the counter. . nooooo, it knows me by name and it lures me and says things like "just trim a little piece off for a snack, COME ON!!!" or it might say "that piece is uneven - just even it up there. . its only a bit" I swear, sometimes i wanna go COOKIE MONSTER BESERK!!! UMMMMYUMMMYUMM.. . with the same googly eyes and crumbs flying. . . but then i realize that if i did. . i would indeed weigh 300 pounds and i might have a 'second butt' out front and that's just nasty. . not to mention that i would probably become as a sick as a dog. . . its a lunatic feeling this feeling of uncontrol in the guise of control. . .

What is wrong with me? Why do i try to fix emotional problems with chocolate chunk cookies?
Why do i want to keep eating just cuz it tastes good? even though i know friggin' well that there will be more left at another time?
Maybe i should be lying on an analyst's couch here??!
WAH!!!!
Even though I have trained myself to eat nutritiously, and I really do eat good food most of the time. . . the demon is still in there. . . suggesting, tempting, luring. . can it never just go away and leave me alone? Can I not crave a bacon mushroom melt instead of a piece of chocolate cake? why do i have to crave anything? Why can't i just eat just enough to take away the hunger and not more than i need?

oh well. . . i guess its time for bed. . and you'll be proud of me. . i'm working out 5 days a week for an hour a day. . I am trying to keep 'offending' demonic goodies out of this house. . . though its hard to do that when you have grandkids and skinny daughters who like to have the occasional sweet bite to eat. . . (you'll be double proud of me cuz i didn't do that to them!!!) I am trying to learn that problems aren't solved with bakery items, or by the baking or consuming high glycemic index baddies. . St. Paul had a thorn in the flesh to contend with. . . i have boston cream donuts. . . equally contentious, i'd say!






11 comments:

Sherri Lavender said...

I love sweets too. I can't put into words my love for chocolate. Have you been to Bratty Brats for the triple chocolate fudge brownie ice cream? For a limited time only!!! Oh baby!

The best advice I have is just not to have that stuff in the house. Once it's here, I just can't help myself!

kathryn said...

geez, fish oil taffy? darned if know. I would say logically speaking that it would provide Omega III fatty acids, which are supposed to be heart healthy. . maybe some iron, protein, i'm not sure what's in a cod's liver!!! Given the choice, I would have rather eaten the actual fish for sure.

kathryn said...

a fellow sweet lover!! yay Sherri! I have not been to Bratty Brats for that particular flavour of ice temptation. . . it sounds out of this world!!!

Yeah, keeping the sweets outta the house is great advice. I avoid baking currently, even though i love it so much, because i find it hard not to eat the finished result. . I can bake and give away! which i've often done to avoid it going down my gullet. . I bake and freeze. . that stops me from eating it. . its this LOVE/hate thing.

I'm TRYING to realize that no food is "bad", but its the amount of it that I choose to eat that's the issue and the frequency with which i indulge. .

kathryn said...

i wonder!! You know, that's one thing i actually don't really care about - ice cream. . . i'll eat it sometimes - but i don't ever crave it. HALLELUJAH! something sweet exists that I don't crave!!! ha ha!!! my favourite things are squares. . I even want to open up my own little shop (I have a name that i don't want to say in case some random blogger nips it!!!) I have a location scouted! (an abandoned hardware store near my house - its this quaint little house) I picture me buying it and outfitting it with a kitchen and tables and chairs, a gorgeous counter, beautiful lighting, it would be a bustling take out type business - possible 'catering' type thing happening for all kinds of special occasions. Only thing is i have no business sense, i don't do accounting and i know that statistically small businesses in this part of the province fold very easily. . and then there goes your life's savings and tons of extended credit - hello bankruptcy. geez, i talked myself right out of it!

Nah. . its not the right time. . gotta get our youngest through uni first and pay off the mortage. .

Tee/Tracy said...

You just told part of my life story - and you told it very well - honestly and very funny (though sad, too.) ... So many women are struggling like this. Good luck overcoming - I'm right beside you.

Great post :)

Denise said...

This post makes me hungry!!! You can send some sweets my way - anything beats Harbor Light food 3 times a day! I'm thankful for the food to eat, but...geez!

kathryn said...

thanx, Tee!!! yeah, its a woman's struggle. . i'm glad to know that you relate and your share in it!!

talk to you soon!!!


Dee. . . i would bake something for you and ship it, but i don't know what it would be like when it go to ya!?

ha ha!!!

Tracy said...

I'm not crazy about the sweets, although I do enjoy my chocolate. I find savoury, fatty foods more problematic. Like Doritos. That's my love hate relationship right there. I often think I should get a job at Hostess, just to make me sick of them, but I don't think it would work!

kathryn said...

i just watched 2 back to back docus about the 'superobese'. . i could not stop watching.. even though it was late -- i was mesmerized. These people would eat 40 hot dogs at a sitting, 60 slices of pizza, a dozen eggs at a time. . yet they were always hungry. . i felt a mixture of extreme sympathy and disgust. . . one lady's story was so touching - she was such a beautiful person - so loving and sweet to everyone she would meet. . to see how she would treat the ambulance attendants who had to move her bulkage back and forth to the hospital several times - for post gastric bypass surgery complications - i cried. .i couldn't stand it, she was just so lovely and she was trapped in this body of her own making- so unable to do almost anything - it was just sad.

Made me think, 'geez, what's my problem? for the most part, i've always been able to keep pretty good control most times and excellent control at other times.'

we all have our thing -

we both have our 'achilles heel' i guess. there's been research re dopamine and leptin -- the former being the 'feel good' chemical in the brain - MRI scans of the obese show almost no dopamine receptors! similar picture of addicts. other studies show leptin being absent in larger ppl. . leptin tells the brain when to stop eating. . so interesting!

Kevin said...

Working out 5 days a week is intense!

Yikes, all that talk of sweets is making me want something deliciously bad for me. I'd better get something to eat that isn't sweet.

Keep going!

~Kev

kathryn said...

for sure. . the work outs are draining. . but they're so flippin' fun!!!

the sweets. . yes, even mention of them makes ppl want them, eh?!!!

I try to think before i put something in my mouth, what's that going to do for me?

thanx for the encouragement, Kev!