Filed under: Inspiration, Nutrition | Tags: biggest loser, candy, drug, rules of eating, sugar, too sweet
In the life I’m trying to leave behind, there are a couple of rules that I’ve lived by:
1- Availability of food is reason enough to eat. Hunger has nothing to do with it.
2-There’s no such thing as “too sweet”
3-Any package of cookies on the isle of the grocery store is a single serving.
Wednesday night I watched the latest Biggest Loser. This is the episode where they all got to go home, and there was a giant crate waiting for them. Inside the crate was a stationary bike, and a box of cupcakes. The challenge was they had to ride 26.2 miles on the bike, and they could eat a cupcake to add 5 minutes of time to any other player.
100 calories a cupcake, 5 minutes added to the other players time. $10,000 to the winner. Sounds fun.
Many of the players opted out of eating any cupcakes. But several ate 6 or more to add time to other people’s scores…
Here’s what I thought was interesting. They all had a hard time eating a cupcake, let alone 5 or 6. They all took a their first bite of the cupcake and grimaced, kind of gagging the thing down. They all complained about how sweet it was, how it was too much, how they weren’t enjoying having to do this.
Given my rule two, I thought that was interesting. As far fetched as that sounded (based on my rule 2) I believed them, and I wondered if that kind of thing could ever happen to me…
Yesterday my boss came out of her office. One of our vendors had sent a selection of toffees. She borrowed my scissors, opened it, ate a piece, and left them on the desk next to me.
Ok, so according to rule 1, food is available so I eat. I can do that.
There were three kinds of toffee open, so I had a piece of each – I was quite proud of myself for only eating one each. But that third one was delicious, so I had two more.
It’s not that I even love toffee, it’s just that it was there. You know? I didn’t pound all of this down in 15 seconds, it took me an hour or so, but they were in me.
The first thing I noticed is my mouth was almost burning – hmmm, that’s not really how to describe it. The sweet taste in my mouth was so strong it was almost more than I could bear. I started drinking water to try to dilute it, to make it bearable.
Then came the head rush. I joked with my boss that I thought there was cocaine in the candy, she agreed since she was having the same symptoms. I got really light-headed, then it started turning into a headache. Not pleasant.
Then the crash. I was SO tired. I could barely keep my eyes open. I thought about eating another piece just to get me to dinner – but my mouth couldn’t bear the thought (yes my mouth thinks, doesn’t yours?) of that taste again…
I was sitting through a meeting (conference call) and all I could hear was “platform” and “leveraging”. I know they were saying other things, but those were the only two words that stuck out to me. I’m telling you, it was like being on a drug, and it was a bad trip.
I’m at work now, the toffee is on the desk next to me. All I can feel when I think about it is that headache. I swear, just thinking about it gives me a headache. How’s that for motivation to stay away from it?
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Doug Losing Weight 