Most people think gambling involves money and games of chance. Buy a ticket and the odds are against you that you’ll win anything. Most likely you’ll lose. And if you keep gambling you’ll lose everything, since gambling is one of those addictive activities that no one knows who it will sting until they engage in the game.
So you think you’re not a gambler?
Most people think they’re not gamblers, because they don’t play games with real money.
Some more than others.
When people talk about the stock market, they refer to playing it. After all, you’re putting your money into a company you know little about for people to use who for all you know have poor money management skills and spend a good deal of time gambling with your investment in their company. Lots of shop owners can be found at the casino or race track hoping to double or triple their profits, but it rarely happens.
When applying for a license to set up a gambling establishment, one calls it a gaming license.
That’s not the gambling I’m talking about. The gambling I’m talking about is the type that we all do, in some form or another, some more than others, without even realizing it, or if we do we shrug it off.
Gambling with our health. That’s what we do.
How long can we smoke before there’s no return from the damage and we succumb to cancer?How long can we over-indulge in alcohol before there’s no return from the damage to our bodies. How long can we knowingly eat foods that are bad for us before we succumb to the damage created by those foods?
How long can we get away with vomiting our meals because we can’t accept our body image, before that two way street becomes a one way street to the morgue?
How long can we indulge in all the bad foods, only to shift to over-indulging in all the good foods to keep us where we’re at, fat? Fat is fat. Accepting where you’re at because everybody’s in the same fat place, no matter what they eat, guarantees you a one way ticket to the hospital.
Just this once. One more time. Tomorrow, tomorrow tomorrow.
heart disease
obesity
asthma
muscle and nerve damage
Every organ in your body, including your skin and even the non-organs like hair, teeth and nails are adversely affected every time you gamble with your health.
One more roll of the dice.
Betting against the odds that we’ll survive no matter what or how much we eat is a full time endeavor.
Well, I had a half a head of broccoli while I ate a bucket of fried chicken and drank a jumbo soda, then a few beers later, but a diet coke at the end so the broccoli and diet coke should set me straight – for today. Oh yeah, and the double bacon cheeseburger at lunch with jumbo fries and a coke, but the burger had lettuce, tomato, pickle on it and I think there were some sesame seeds on the bun, so I’m okay there. It isn’t how much veggie, but the quality of the veggie, plus it was fresh, paleo or raw or something like that, so I’m good. I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.
Health isn’t as much about exercise, as it is about what and how much we consume of everything.
The amount is critical. The total calorie count is everything. Fat is much higher in calories compared to carbohydrates and proteins, and you can survive on high fat foods, you just can’t eat very much of it, because your calorie count will be off the charts.
But high carbs or high protein or high everything is just as bad if you’re trying to lose weight.
I don’t know if anyone has tried to eat only fat to lose weight. Margarine or oil by itself isn’t appetizing enough, otherwise people would have tried it. Maybe they did and I just didn’t hear or read about it.
Peanut butter at least has protein and some carbs, but comes in at 100 calories per Tablespoon. That’s a level Tablespoon not a heaping one like we’re used to spreading on toast or sandwich.
How much peanut butter do you spread on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I don’t eat those kinds of sandwiches – never had except once obviously – but it seems like one Tablespoon wouldn’t be enough, probably would break the bread as you spread it. The soft texture of bread against the peanut butter and jelly doesn’t work for me. Now toast is a different matter – open-faced – and crackers too. Ritz crackers with peanut butter and jelly or cheese and pickle or relish. I can go through a lot of those.
If you eat just peanut butter on a diet, because it contains fats, proteins and carbohydrates, you could eat ten level tablespoons on a 1,000 calorie a day diet and be healthy. Maybe not long term, but for a short time, it certainly wouldn’t put you into the gambling with your health category. I won’t lose much weight on a thousand calorie a day diet; I already tried that. People eat peanut butter to gain weight, not to lose weight.
- I can’t eat plain peanut butter. It needs something with it – jelly or mustard or pickle. I wonder how much weight I could lose in one week if I ate only peanut butter, mustard, jelly, pickle plus black coffee and water? It sounds good, but I don’t think I’d last a day.
Now some of you will be thinking that quick weight loss isn’t lasting and you’re right. But I’m beginning to think that quick weight loss can be the motivator if you make it into one and not stop dieting after you lose the weight.
Accepting dieting as a way of life is called weight management. Many people move away from the word diet, because it’s too emotional. They resist having to do something they don’t want to do and the word diet is connected to that. They fight back, in other words, by eating even more.
The diet word also signals depravation, and nobody enjoys being deprived of something they see everybody else doing. Why can’t I have what they’re having/ Well, you could if that’s where it ended, but like that third drink of alcohol, it rarely stops there.
I certainly understand the connection, but if the new normal for me is going to be a lifetime of dieting, then me calling it something it doesn’t look or taste like won’t be beneficial. Tricking one’s self has it’s merits, but maybe we’re tricking ourselves too much and that’s why we have a weight problem. Maybe advertisers are tricking us too much too – always luring us into that gambling with our health category by teasing us with all that’s bad for us.
You can have your cake and eat it too as long as the portions are tiny. Two bite maximum. Where’d the rest of the cake go?
Flush it down the toilet after one piece, otherwise you’ll keep going back for more.
You spent a half a day making that cake and after one piece it’s going down the toilet?
Yup; that’s where it’s going to end up anyway. Why process it through me to get to its preordained destination?
Yeah, so next time I want a piece of cake I might be satisfied with a Tablespoon of peanut butter and jelly on top, to save me some time. But I’ll go back for that too, which leads me to the toilet again, dumping the peanut butter and the jelly. It would be a lot of work though getting that peanut butter out of the jar.
I don’t know where this goes, but the other day I dumped about seven cups of pasta, marinara sauce and animal-free meatballs, that was only one day old, down the toilet so I wouldn’t eat it.
Truth be told, it felt pretty darn good.
I make a lot of recipes and we eat what I make. I’m beginning to rethink it. Not developing recipes isn’t an option I give myself. So, take one serving, give Steve one serving (that’s where he is now on his diet, controlling the number of servings), then dump the rest down the toilet. Don’t wait till tomorrow. It’s going down the toilet anyway.
Remove the temptation.
That’s what I’ll leave you with today, remove the temptation – after you’ve indulged so you won’t indulge again.
Later Gators,
Sharon
FAT-FREE CHEF™ 