Deflabbify

I hate fundraisers

Well, maybe I should be a little more specific:  I hate fundraisers at work where they just leave a box of candy bars and an envelope in a high-traffic area.

I fell off the wagon over the past week or so and became a really, really good customer of this particular fundraiser.  As in I bought a couple dozen candy bars and practically bought the whole softball team new uniforms.

Food, food, food.  Buy some food.  It’s for the kids.  BAH!  "Apply directly to hips" is more like it.

I pray that I can resist temptation for sweets more.  It’s something I know that I won’t be able to do with my own power.  A 5% success rate for keeping weight off five years or more says that it’s difficult even with His help.

Here’s a question for you folks who aren’t as tempted by sweets:  How do you say no when your taste buds are screaming yes?

My biggest health or fitness vice

Nickel at Fit36 tagged me to post on my biggest health or fitness vice.

I just plurked on this:

I love beer, but beer doesn’t love me back.

Beer might have some health benefits but for the most part it’s empty calories, and any health benefits I might have gotten from it are offset by the extra pounds.

One thing that helps is my wife plays “beer fairy” and hides them where I can’t find them, thereby allowing her to ration them a little more. (I play along and don’t look for the beers.) That, and it is a bit fun to summon the beer fairy, I must admit.

Hmmm, who to tag next? How about:

• Pete over at Quick To Fit
• Kevin over at Weight Ladder
• MizFit over at MizFitOnline

(Rules of the Meme: 1) Post on your biggest health/fitness vice; 2) link back to the person who tagged you; 3) tag some more people and let them know they’ve been tagged! Oh, and have fun!)

The killer hidden cost of weight-loss programs

BankRate.com had this article on MSN Moneycentral:

What does it cost to drop 30 pounds?

The article runs down the costs associated with well-known diet programs like Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, and The Zone Diet. These programs aren’t cheap. The cheapest of the four for losing 30 pounds is under $100 (for online registration at Weight Watchers, not including food) to over $5,000 for daily food delivery in some cities for The Zone Diet.

A former member of our church went on one of these programs (his was $10 per day including food) and lost the weight initially, but then it came back.

I can see the plans being pretty difficult to stick to, and I can see it being pretty easy to cheat (eat food outside of what’s allowed). And that’s the killer cost.

I’m sure the added external structure of these programs is worth the money, but let’s face it: It’s not in the best interest of these companies to get you to a point where you don’t need them. They make money by selling controlled portions of food and other services. And they also make money when you fail and come back.

So though these programs may be good at kick-starting a diet, the dieter should look for a way to maintain the eating habits without that company. Also, if one of these programs doesn’t seem to be working or is just too painful to follow for whatever reason, get out. That’s not failing; that’s just being pragmatic. Try something else after figuring out why that particular plan didn’t work. There’s no real reason to pay a premium for food if it’s not serving its intended purpose.

Easy hack for really thin pats of butter

Once in a great, great, great while I’ll do something and my wife will laugh and say, “That was smart!”

I cooked up some tortellini and vegetables for dinner a couple of weekends ago, and asked my wife what she wanted on it. “A little butter,” she said. We store our butter in the refrigerator because we don’t really use a whole lot of it, so it’s pretty hard when it comes out. This makes it a little more difficult to cut than if the butter’s at room temperature.

So I just got out a cheese slicer — this one in particular — and sliced off a few pats, maybe a couple of millimeters thick. Way easier than trying to mess with a butter knife or stirring the meal to melt and coat a couple of big pats.

This is also a good way to enjoy a little butter and control the portion carefully.

Free goodies at work are evil

I guess I have a really serious oral fixation or something like that. Or a sweet tooth. Or both.

One of my colleagues gets a gift and decides to spread the wealth with the rest of us, which is nice. They get bonus points for their big heart. But man, a bowl of candy or a birthday cake or a plate of brownies is so tempting. It’s right there, and it’s free.

I’m a bargain hunter so “free” is my favorite word. Once in a great while there will be a retirement party and there will be leftovers from a vegetable snack tray, but usually the calories lying around are just empty carbs.

For the past few days I’d been pretty good about passing by the sweets, but today I fell off the wagon, and man, the sweets hitting my system just shut it down. I knew that refined sugar promotes tooth decay and suppresses the immune system but here are several dozen bad things that sugar does to your body. (Scroll down to the salmon-colored box.)

Water can be a good substitute for those occasional cravings, and as long as I get it out of the fountain, it’s free, too.