What you are about to see is pornography -- hard-core food pornography.
Images like this one -- and even more obscene images, such as buttercream-y cakes and chocolate-y EVERYTHING -- pop up on my Facebook feed from time to time.
Unless you are carbing up for three consecutive triathlons, this is not fuel. This is ballast. Biggie-bottom, fat-rolls-around-the-midsection ballast.
I'd say, "Get it out of my sight!", except for one thing: I've been raised to crave food like this, and so has just about everybody I know. We grew up on monstrous-size portions of cheesy, saucy, meaty, greasy, creamy, sugary foods that neither fuel nor strengthen us, just fill us and fatten us.
As fond as I am of approaching food the way the Apostle Paul approached ethical behavior for Christians -- "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful" -- I have to be bluntly honest, and say that if you're serious about losing weight and keeping it off, you have to stay away from a lot of the foods that have become staples in our rural Midwestern, Great Plains and Southern cultures.
This is the kind of food my grandfather ate, three times a day, when farming was much more of a sunup-to-sundown physical effort than it is now -- so it made sense to fuel up on greasy, gravy-covered meats and white-bread cheese sandwiches grilled with lard.
We don't live that way anymore, and we can't eat that way anymore.
But how do you stop, in a world where friends gather around a 30-inch pizza, where every Chamber of Commerce banquet is held at a supper club with broasted chicken, where every fair offers foot-long corn dogs and deep-fried Oreos, and where community events simply MUST include a selection of pies, cakes and cookies?
Living in a world of food porn requires being intentional, and staying intentional.
It requires, let's face it, saying "No, thanks" to foods we crave (or used to crave), and saying "Yes, please" to foods that are not in our culture's forefront, like steamed vegetables, oatmeal, salads not loaded down with meat and croutons, un-breaded fish and chicken grilled without butter or extra-crispy coating.
If I want to embrace the body I have now as my permanent identity, I can't eat the stuff my extended family likes to eat on the rare occasions when we get together -- certainly not in the quantities we've long been accustomed to consuming.
And, while some food porn is tantalizing, other images, like the one above, have started to repel me. Any joy I might get from consuming that spaghetti-pizza casserole would be canceled out by a belly ache -- a physical and psychological response.
I feel the same way about grilled cheese sandwiches (which I used to love) and milk chocolate candies: Even the thought of consuming them, especially in mass quantities, makes me vaguely nauseous.
Cakes and cookies are a little harder to say no to. In fact, I didn't say no -- but I did say, "Just one, please" -- when I was offered a soft molasses cookie yesterday.
For my upcoming birthday, which falls on the day of my weekly staff meeting at work, I'll bring the guys cake pops instead of a whole cake or a box of cupcakes. A touch of celebration, and only about 160 calories for each of the white ones.
As for my friends who are fond of posting food porn on social media -- maybe now and then I'll look at the images, and even click on the recipe, because, hey, there are no calories in just looking.
Are there?
Unless you are carbing up for three consecutive triathlons, this is not fuel. This is ballast. Biggie-bottom, fat-rolls-around-the-midsection ballast.
I'd say, "Get it out of my sight!", except for one thing: I've been raised to crave food like this, and so has just about everybody I know. We grew up on monstrous-size portions of cheesy, saucy, meaty, greasy, creamy, sugary foods that neither fuel nor strengthen us, just fill us and fatten us.
As fond as I am of approaching food the way the Apostle Paul approached ethical behavior for Christians -- "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful" -- I have to be bluntly honest, and say that if you're serious about losing weight and keeping it off, you have to stay away from a lot of the foods that have become staples in our rural Midwestern, Great Plains and Southern cultures.
This is the kind of food my grandfather ate, three times a day, when farming was much more of a sunup-to-sundown physical effort than it is now -- so it made sense to fuel up on greasy, gravy-covered meats and white-bread cheese sandwiches grilled with lard.
We don't live that way anymore, and we can't eat that way anymore.
But how do you stop, in a world where friends gather around a 30-inch pizza, where every Chamber of Commerce banquet is held at a supper club with broasted chicken, where every fair offers foot-long corn dogs and deep-fried Oreos, and where community events simply MUST include a selection of pies, cakes and cookies?
Living in a world of food porn requires being intentional, and staying intentional.
It requires, let's face it, saying "No, thanks" to foods we crave (or used to crave), and saying "Yes, please" to foods that are not in our culture's forefront, like steamed vegetables, oatmeal, salads not loaded down with meat and croutons, un-breaded fish and chicken grilled without butter or extra-crispy coating.
If I want to embrace the body I have now as my permanent identity, I can't eat the stuff my extended family likes to eat on the rare occasions when we get together -- certainly not in the quantities we've long been accustomed to consuming.
And, while some food porn is tantalizing, other images, like the one above, have started to repel me. Any joy I might get from consuming that spaghetti-pizza casserole would be canceled out by a belly ache -- a physical and psychological response.
I feel the same way about grilled cheese sandwiches (which I used to love) and milk chocolate candies: Even the thought of consuming them, especially in mass quantities, makes me vaguely nauseous.
Cakes and cookies are a little harder to say no to. In fact, I didn't say no -- but I did say, "Just one, please" -- when I was offered a soft molasses cookie yesterday.
For my upcoming birthday, which falls on the day of my weekly staff meeting at work, I'll bring the guys cake pops instead of a whole cake or a box of cupcakes. A touch of celebration, and only about 160 calories for each of the white ones.
As for my friends who are fond of posting food porn on social media -- maybe now and then I'll look at the images, and even click on the recipe, because, hey, there are no calories in just looking.
Are there?
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