 |
| Is the soup pot half-empty or half-full? |
A family member recently morphed from foodie into a devotee of
the Cabbage Soup Diet. Like all followers of extreme diets, she cycles between exhilaration,
“I lost another pound!” and despair, “Can I sniff your salmon? One sniff will
get me through the next hour.”
If I don’t sneak off to eat my breakfast in a closet and
serve dinner so al fresco it’s behind a hedge, I feel as if I’m sabotaging my
daughter’s efforts. Then again, we’re talking extreme diet. Isn’t it a mother’s
job to model a sensible eating pattern for her children, even the grown ones
who should know cabbage soup for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner doesn’t
offer complete nutrition? By eating three square meals a day, I’m setting a
positive example, right?
My family’s ancestors would have been grateful for all the
cabbage soup they could eat, but I want to slip my girl a little protein. And
calcium. Meanwhile, I'm eating more sensibly than I like because I’m doing
the role-model thing. The sacrifices
parents make! Au revoir to cheese and crackers before dinner. Hello, handful of
almonds. Goodbye, frozen yogurt at eight p.m. Hi there, half-cup of
blueberries.
My daughter’s extreme diet could result in modest benefits
for me IF I resist the temptation to sneak off for a BLT.
Right now, though, a sandwich is calling my name, and
there’s not a leaf of cabbage on it. Quick, where are my car keys?
Have family members roped you into their diet regimens? If
you’re the one who tried an extreme diet, how did it work out?
8 comments:
Lol. The closest I can come to this is that my husband is still in post-surgery healing after a knee replacement and he has no appetite, so I feel guilty when I eat. Doesn't mean I've stopped--just that I sneak around a lot. Alas, no hedges, but I do have some empty dishes here in the office that need to find their secret way back into the house... Good luck to your daughter!
Oh man - don't even go there with me. I'm so sick of all the fad diets these days. I'm a huge fan of everything in moderation. If you deprive yourself of something too long all you ever have is a craving for that thing. I say treat yourself once in a while and stop worrying about it.
I used to think I had to keep alcohol out of the house because my husband is a recovering alcoholic (30 years sober). But then I realized that it is HIS problem and not mine. I don't offer him any and I don't ask him to get it for me, but it's my house too and I drink alcohol, so he has to learn to deal with it. He is not even tempted by it so it's not a problem; in fact he's even a bartender on occasion. Go figure! I thought my sacrifice would help him and I was wrong. So too, if your loved one wants to do this thing, then she has to be strong enough to do it on her own. (At least for this fad thing. If she had a condition far more serious and truly needed your absolute abstinence for her support team, then I know we'd all do the right thing and support her, but for this passing thing? Nah.)
Okay - nuff said. But good for you for eating more healthy. I try to do that too, but alas, I sometimes spoil myself with a soda, or ice cream, or extra margarita.
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
Oh, ouch. Here's hoping she'll get through this one quickly!
About as far as we go in my family is to keep potato chips out of the house because others will eat them if they're there at all. My mom makes my dad keep them in his car (LOL!) so she won't eat them--but sometimes, she will go out to the garage and get them anyway!
My mom does the cabbage soup thing every so often. I try to buy snacks that I like but don't send me into mindless binge mode. My hub brought home 3 lbs of Cadbury fruit and nut chocolate on his way home from a UK business trip (he blamed his lack of sleep) and I told him he had to bring it to the office. That is way too tempting for me! :)
Well it's obvious there is no ice cream involved in this story. lol. Actually, other than the missing protein, cabbage rocks in nutrients. Yet, it seems like the daughter's habits are rubbing off just a touch? You know I love those blueberries. Maybe, as her diet processes, she may be open to some lean meats, egg whites?, yogurt perhaps. Got to feed those adrenals. Anyway, this is only coming from another mother. Whoops, we can't help ourselves, can we Pat? :)
That cabbage soup diet has been around for years and so naturally I've tried it at some point. And gained all the weight back as soon as I ate real food. Now just the smell of it makes me gag. I hope she has good luck with it but there are a lot of Real Food diets that work quickly and with a lot less pain.
Hang in there. She'll come around
Hi Pat,
My life is a diet - never seems to end. Many people our age have told me that they just refuse to diet - I'm trying to lose that 10 pounds now just to get to a weight that has no meaning whatsoever - just psychological. Easier to lose 100 than 10 sometimes, isn't it.
Interesting comment about some of your ancestors who would have done anything to get some cabbage soup. In Ireland, during the terrible famine, there were people known as "soupers". You'll have to look it up to see who these people were.
- Patrick
I've done the South Beach diet and it worked, for a while, until I stopped following it and fell back into my poor eating habits. I wish you and your daughter good luck. BTW: I grew up in Sugar Land and went to A&M before I moved to the midwest 25 years ago. Miss the people, not the weather. I popped on over from Jansen Schmidt's place.
Post a Comment