ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Personal Health
SOURCE: JANE BRODY
As I sit here nibbling on chocolate-covered raisins (in an attempt to conquer my addiction to chocolate-covered coffee beans), I wonder, what would my readers say if they saw me now?
To those of you who may think I always eat right and take the best possible care of my body, I say, not so. I am not a fanatic who lives by a string of ``thou shalt nots.'' And so I must say mea culpa for any number of bodily sins to which I am about to confess in the hope that they will make you feel more relaxed about your own. After all, perfection is stressful, and stress is to be avoided, isn't it? So relax, and let's not worry so much about the little transgressions.
Perhaps it is the purity of my current vacation spot - a rustic cabin overlooking a scenic river in Minnesota - that has prompted this confession. Perhaps it is that summer brings out the best and the worst in me - a time when I strive to get in everything that is either impossible or undesirable during the dark, cold days of winter. Anyway, for the record ...
Too many people are guilty of categorical thinking, as I once was. A food is either good (i.e., good for you) or bad (i.e., bad for you). Too often this results in what I call the ``falling off the cliff'' syndrome. You eat one bad food, conclude that you are hopelessly bad and then proceed to eat every bad thing in sight. This kind of thinking has been the downfall of myriad dieters: one slip from grace and they go on sinning and sinning until they have regained all they lost.
After years of this very same affliction, I decided my only salvation was to incorporate ``sins'' into my normal eating plan. So instead of banning all forbidden fruits - cookies, candy, cake and ice cream - I gave myself permission to have one every day if I wanted it. Amazingly, perhaps a response to the child within, once these treats became permissible, they also became less desirable, and there are days when I forget to have one.
I have maintained this approach for 30 years. If a dessert is irresistibly delicious and I want it, I eat it, maybe even two servings. Then I return to ``normal'' eating the next day. When traveling, I routinely treat myself to a cone of that soothing frozen yogurt that swirls from machines in airports and at highway rest stops. But I know better than to keep the stuff in my home freezer. I cannot resist ice cream and its nonfat imitators, even in flavors I do not especially like.
But I also love bargains. The upstate supermarket I shop at when I can get away for the weekend often has ice cream sales that I cannot resist: two half-gallons for $3. And it's good! Perhaps not to Haagen-Dazs lovers, but I like it just fine, especially at the price. I have convinced myself that it is OK to have ice cream in my upstate freezer because I am there only four or five days a month.
I once was, and perhaps will always be, a compulsive eater. Thirty years ago, this compulsion resulted in 35 or more extra pounds stacked onto a five-foot frame. I alternated between every imaginable kind of diet and uncontrolled, nonstop eating.
I cured myself of the worst aspects of this behavior by abandoning all diets and instead eating three square meals a day, with wholesome snacks and the daily ``no-no.'' The amazing result was that I lost all I had gained, and I kept it off. I think Art Buchwald was right on target when he said the word ``diet'' came from the verb ``to die.''
But I am also keenly aware that my compulsive tendencies lurk just beneath the surface, and I try not to have things around that can do serious damage. The chocolate-covered coffee beans were an unfortunate purchase, bought last Christmas as an after-dinner treat for holiday guests.
At first I ate only a few a day, then a few more. For someone who had supposedly given up caffeine, this was not good, so I next bought chocolate-covered decaffeinated beans, which was also not good, since now there was nothing (but the exorbitant price) to stop me from eating them by the fistful.
I bought the chocolate-covered raisins because they were much cheaper and I thought I would not like them as much, but it turns out that they slip down the gullet far more easily than the coffee beans, and I find myself eating even more of them at a time. Of course, bargain lovers cannot throw food away, so I will eat them until they are gone, and then no more. Or so I say now.
After decades of spurning all artificial sweeteners, I have of late taken to drinking Diet Coke, not every day and mostly caffeine-free, but when I need the jolt, I drink the real thing - Diet Coke with caffeine.
I am beginning to think that the one menopausal symptom that hormone replacement failed to erase is an insistent sweet tooth that had been dormant for decades. A friend with the same lifelong problem has coped by declaring all sweets off-limits. She figures, correctly, that if she never has any she cannot overeat them. But I do hope I will never have to go that far.
I have to do something with my hands or my mouth when I am working, and usually cannot start writing without first eating something: pretzels (nonfat, of course), corn nuts, dry cereal and popcorn (air-popped, sometimes with salt but never with butter) are my usual creative stimulants. At least once a week I thank my lucky stars that I never learned to smoke, because I most assuredly would have been one of those tobacco addicts who could not write a word without a cigarette.
The one addiction that may someday do me in is physical activity. Although I have never attempted a triathalon, there have been many days that included three or, when on vacation, even four different sports or exercises.
There was a time when a day was not complete unless I had played tennis. My 55-year-old body is now beginning to rebel, and I am learning by necessity to space out the punishment it gets on the court and to alternate my activities with more attention to the body parts involved.
But I still use physical activity as my reward for completing tasks; as soon as I finish writing or sorting a stack of papers, I might hop on my bicycle, or go for a swim or take my dog for a brisk walk.
I am not great at sitting down to read for pleasure when I can be doing something else. Nearly all my extracurricular reading occurs on planes and trains, when I am forced to stay in one place for hours.
And while I have made considerable progress in curbing my Type A behavior and resulting stress (I now consider myself a much more mellow Type A-minus) there are still two circumstances that can drive me up the wall: traffic jams and lines. I will do almost anything to avoid them both, but when I find myself stuck in one, you would be wise to take a wide detour around me.
LENGTH: Long : 112 linesby CNB