The Last Supper

There’s a lag time between the wellness evaluation, the fitness orientation, and the actual start of the program. You don’t start the nutrition and fitness plan the second you sign up. For me, it took about a week to get everything in order. So, I set my start date for the following Sunday. (Mondays are bad enough I figured, why add a new diet to the misery.) All this, of course, meant that Saturday was The Last Supper.

The last non-calorie-counting-butter-slathered-sugar-infused meal for eight weeks. Given this, I planned a good one: chicken piccata with a wine-butter sauce, green beans sautéed in oil and fresh strawberries and blueberries. Okay, the berries and green beans are actually fine on the plan, but not the butter sauce and breaded chicken.

Anyway, what I was really excited about was dessert.

I don’t normally eat dessert. I like it, but too much sugar makes me jittery, so I don’t eat a lot of it. But here’s the thing about me. I have control issues. So as soon as you tell me I can’t have something, then that’s all I want.  It doesn’t matter that I’m not a huge fan of dessert, if you say it’s off limits then I’ll eat a pound of it just to show you who's boss.

My husband Michael says that the best way to get me to do something is to simply tell me not to do it. “Don’t tell me no” is apparently my mantra.

And don’t get me started on the carbohydrate downward spiral—eating sugar begets craving sugar begets eating more sugar—I know, I know! If I load up on sugar right before the diet I’m going to crash—hard!

I know this, I do, I really do.

But I planned a double-fudge brownie sundae with chocolate sauce and whipped cream for dessert anyway.

And I ate it. Even went back for more.

Yeah, don’t tell me no.