Keeping the wolves at bay. Deterrence and the art of grazing control.

Sometimes, I really have to take a moment to laugh at myself and my own little bizarre methods to maintain a grip on eating reality.

For those that have been following my little chronicle of maintaining my weight loss on Weight Watchers, you have heard me talk about the fact that I have "mastered" the healthy lifestyle in many places, but that I still have my perilous zones.  One of my biggest is a special little cabinet in our kitchen that principally houses various ingredients for baking plus a few snack items.  This is the place where I go when I'm either getting home from work (before dinner) or when I'm aimlessly wandering in the kitchen on the weekends.

So what specifically is in this magical cabinet?  It's full of nuts, chocolate chips for baking, and most recently a very large bag of M&M's, also intended for baking.  My DSW is an active and proficient chef, presiding over Chez Kirchhoff.  Recently, my two girls have joined her staff, and my 11 year-old has  developed a love for baking cookies.  It seems that I have a love for pilfering her ingredients.

Which brings me to my story.  For quite some time, there has been a very large bag of M&M's sitting in the magic cabinet which was intended to be used for cookies for a school bake sale.  For some reason, there was a change of plans, and the M&M's went untouched.  Fortunately for me, they were sealed.  You see, there is a code among thieves, and I do not steal from un-open bags of ingredients.  Rather, my preferred method is to gradually take imperceptible quantities of chocolate chips and nuts in delta force-worthy sneak attacks.  However, if the bag stays closed or VERY tightly sealed, I leave it be.  This all works very well until the bag gets opened, which it did.  Sure enough I started making a routine of grabbing a small handful of M&M's ever three to four days. Not terrible, but this is exactly the kind of grazing habit I'm trying to quit.

Help us!  We're trapped and can't get out!

What could I do given that the bag of M&M's was fairly giant in size?  In a moment of utter brilliance, I put a bag of flour on top of it as a deterrent.  Seriously, I did this about a week ago, and I haven't had an M&M since.  It was as though the bag of flour would be heavy enough to ward off any mid-afternoon weekend raids.  Kind of like a safe.  Seriously.  How old am I?  What's more embarrassing is that this actually seemed to work.  Apparently, seeing the bag has been a useful reminder to me that I should not sneak.  Maybe I need to put little Post-it notes on each piece of snackware that says:  "Not for David to eat!!!!"

I guess it takes all kinds of efforts to control one's little private obesogenic environment.  This got me thinking.  Maybe I should also be more actively calculating PointsPlus values for my little evening indulgences.  I will be the first to admit that I can track with the best of them in the morning and afternoon, but that after three years on maintenance I have a hard time keeping the thread in the evening.  Particularly, those post-6 PM bites, licks and tastes.  Definitely a challenge on weekends.  At minimum, forcing myself to at least acknowledge the PointsPlus impact of these excursions could be helpful.

So, off I went this Sunday morning to fully accept the consequences of my actions by reminding myself of the number of PointsPlus values for some of my favorite not-so-friendly indulgences.  What are those these days?  In no particular order:  almonds, bourbon, wine and, in a special guest appearance, M&M's.

I keep forgetting how much of a giant bad deal liquor is on the program these days.  Quite some time ago, I developed a fondness for an evening glass of bourbon on the rocks.  I can nurse my one for the night for well over an hour, and it just seems so civilized and restrained.  Should be no problem from a PointsPlus perspective, right?  Apparently not.  It seems that one of those  short glasses, stuffed with ice, is still enough to hold 1/4 cup of bourbon.  What's the price?  10 bloody PointsPlus values.  Crud.  It makes the five ounce pour of wine at a 5 PointsPlus value seem like a bargain.  [Note:  thanks for the comment from Anonymous showing me my glaring math fail.  2 oz bourbon is only 5 POINTS.  I had inadvertently plugged in 4 oz.  All is good in the world again!]

But it seemed such a small bag?!

What about almonds?  They're healthy right?  Well, they are most definitely healthy, but that are also disturbingly dense with energy.  I started getting the pre-packaged Trader Joes almonds thinking that this could help me avoid my eat-em by the handful habit.  While this is true, a small pre-made bag is still enough to hold 38 of the little buggers which knocks up a 6 PointsPlus hit.  Not terrible if this is the ONLY thing I'm eating beyond dinner, but not really the stuff intended for a mindless bite before dinner.

The whole exercise was all a little sad, but I suppose that knowledge is power.  This gives me an extra reason to look into alternative strategies for both snacks and drinks.  I've been meaning to re-allocate my liquid allowances to light beer, and I now have a good incentive to do so.  I think it's also time to think about moving away from almond grazing forever and find some less energy dense evening snack alternative.  It's just not worth the hit.

Thanking you for joining another episode of Dave's Navel Gazing Adventures!

Cheers,

dk