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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 171848" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>You're right about the difficulty in sticking to a diet when you're the one doing the shopping.</p><p></p><p>You need a good enough reason to convince yourself. In my case, it was knowing that if I stepped up now and controlled my diet, then there was a chance I could go back to eating my favourite foods, at least occasionally. But if I didn't, then there was 100&#37; chance that strict dieting would be forced on me very soon, permanently, by diabetes.</p><p></p><p>That gave me the reason. Do it now, for a while, or do it soon anyway, forever. Not much choice in that.</p><p></p><p>We're all different in how we cope. I find I get obsessed with food when I'm dieting. But I can deal with it by going on a cooking binge, as long as there are other people to eat what I produce. I play with food, in other words. At the moment I am poaching a chook overnight in the crock pot. I will use it to feed people tomorrow - informally. On the weekends we relax a fair bit, people drift in and out and at some stage I suggest a bowl of soup or (especially in our cold weather) some comfort food like risotto or gnocchi (both loaded with carbs) all made fresh while the chicken stock simmers. Having the hot stock available makes so much possible, so quickly - especially the risotto. I can do a quick, healthy almost instant chicken & vegetable soup using the hot stock and some vegetables. I make it in the mug, by the mugful, using the microwave to finish the cooking and to thicken it with a little cornstarch. Five minutes, tops, including shredding the vegetables.</p><p></p><p>Or I play with biscuits or cupcakes. I bought some special cake sprinkle stuff last time I shopped, so I could play with making/decorating cakes and biscuits. While I like eating biscuits, they are banned on my diet. But even more than eating them, I enjoy filling a small basket or pretty biscuit tin with a variety of biscuits in different shapes, flavours and decorations. I have biscuit cutters of various shapes and sizes, including hearts and stars in three or four different sizes as well as tiny and larger teddy bear cutters and gingerbread men (and lady) cutters. So I play. I make two different flavours of biscuit dough, roll it out into a log and keep the log in the fridge. When I want to make biscuits I cut thin slices and put them onto a baking sheet. Then I use my cutters and cut the largest hearts (for example) in two different flavours/colours. Then I get the next size down and carefully cut a smaller shape inside the larger one. I remove the smaller shape (carefully) from each one and swap them, so the vanilla heart now contains a slightly smaller chocolate heart. And vice versa. Then I do it again. I keep going until I have no smaller cutter. And by this stage I have pre-cooked biscuits that are layered concentrically. Then I decorate with choc bits, or nuts, or silver cachous. Or you can leave the final shape as a hole, and fill it with sugar before baking. In the oven it caramelises into toffee like a sugar window pane. Or you can leave a hole and sandwich cooked biscuits together with butter cream or jam, one biscuit with the hole so the filling is peek-a-boo.</p><p>It's really easy to do a whole tray of biscuits differently, so you put a mix into the oven. And they come out already decorated.</p><p></p><p>For Christmas I put a small hole in each compound biscuit before baking, then after baking I thread them on a little curling ribbon and give away a packet of them as edible tree ornaments.</p><p></p><p>Or I make tomato relish (when tomatoes are in season). By the time it's all made the last thing i want to do is eat some. I've had to taste as I cook (not enough to damage the diet) and I feel like I've eaten a lot, when in fact I've hardly had a thing.</p><p></p><p>And once you've cooked all the fun, special stuff you normally wouldn't make time for, you then have a lot of fun sharing it around. In the process you earn brownie points with friends and neighbours - always a good thing.</p><p></p><p>As for the problem of using the kids as an excuse to stop for fast food - we've been trying to work on the kids from Day 1, to teach them to value good food, real food. Not necessarily healthy food, but food that tastes good instead of food that is merchandised well. For example, Aussie hamburgers are distinctive. They have a lot of salad on them, they are usually a two-fisted job to hold and don't get made in the franchise shops at all. So we search out the best shops that make distinctive burgers, or other fast food, and teach the kids to really enjoy these places. If they still want the more commercial fast food joint, it's usually just for the toy and you can buy those individually anyway.</p><p></p><p>But as you said - you need to be psyched up to be strong, yourself. Because if you're not, you'll only sabotage yourself and could end up worse off than if you gave up trying to diet, for now.</p><p></p><p>Feeling guilty is not a good way to manage a diet. It's better to consciously make a decision to not diet, for now, so you don't have to feel guilty. telling yourself you SHOULD diet, but eating the wrong things anyway - it's much more damaging. It's all the disadvantages of being on a diet, with all the disadvantages of eating the foods you crave, with none of the advantages of either.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 171848, member: 1991"] You're right about the difficulty in sticking to a diet when you're the one doing the shopping. You need a good enough reason to convince yourself. In my case, it was knowing that if I stepped up now and controlled my diet, then there was a chance I could go back to eating my favourite foods, at least occasionally. But if I didn't, then there was 100% chance that strict dieting would be forced on me very soon, permanently, by diabetes. That gave me the reason. Do it now, for a while, or do it soon anyway, forever. Not much choice in that. We're all different in how we cope. I find I get obsessed with food when I'm dieting. But I can deal with it by going on a cooking binge, as long as there are other people to eat what I produce. I play with food, in other words. At the moment I am poaching a chook overnight in the crock pot. I will use it to feed people tomorrow - informally. On the weekends we relax a fair bit, people drift in and out and at some stage I suggest a bowl of soup or (especially in our cold weather) some comfort food like risotto or gnocchi (both loaded with carbs) all made fresh while the chicken stock simmers. Having the hot stock available makes so much possible, so quickly - especially the risotto. I can do a quick, healthy almost instant chicken & vegetable soup using the hot stock and some vegetables. I make it in the mug, by the mugful, using the microwave to finish the cooking and to thicken it with a little cornstarch. Five minutes, tops, including shredding the vegetables. Or I play with biscuits or cupcakes. I bought some special cake sprinkle stuff last time I shopped, so I could play with making/decorating cakes and biscuits. While I like eating biscuits, they are banned on my diet. But even more than eating them, I enjoy filling a small basket or pretty biscuit tin with a variety of biscuits in different shapes, flavours and decorations. I have biscuit cutters of various shapes and sizes, including hearts and stars in three or four different sizes as well as tiny and larger teddy bear cutters and gingerbread men (and lady) cutters. So I play. I make two different flavours of biscuit dough, roll it out into a log and keep the log in the fridge. When I want to make biscuits I cut thin slices and put them onto a baking sheet. Then I use my cutters and cut the largest hearts (for example) in two different flavours/colours. Then I get the next size down and carefully cut a smaller shape inside the larger one. I remove the smaller shape (carefully) from each one and swap them, so the vanilla heart now contains a slightly smaller chocolate heart. And vice versa. Then I do it again. I keep going until I have no smaller cutter. And by this stage I have pre-cooked biscuits that are layered concentrically. Then I decorate with choc bits, or nuts, or silver cachous. Or you can leave the final shape as a hole, and fill it with sugar before baking. In the oven it caramelises into toffee like a sugar window pane. Or you can leave a hole and sandwich cooked biscuits together with butter cream or jam, one biscuit with the hole so the filling is peek-a-boo. It's really easy to do a whole tray of biscuits differently, so you put a mix into the oven. And they come out already decorated. For Christmas I put a small hole in each compound biscuit before baking, then after baking I thread them on a little curling ribbon and give away a packet of them as edible tree ornaments. Or I make tomato relish (when tomatoes are in season). By the time it's all made the last thing i want to do is eat some. I've had to taste as I cook (not enough to damage the diet) and I feel like I've eaten a lot, when in fact I've hardly had a thing. And once you've cooked all the fun, special stuff you normally wouldn't make time for, you then have a lot of fun sharing it around. In the process you earn brownie points with friends and neighbours - always a good thing. As for the problem of using the kids as an excuse to stop for fast food - we've been trying to work on the kids from Day 1, to teach them to value good food, real food. Not necessarily healthy food, but food that tastes good instead of food that is merchandised well. For example, Aussie hamburgers are distinctive. They have a lot of salad on them, they are usually a two-fisted job to hold and don't get made in the franchise shops at all. So we search out the best shops that make distinctive burgers, or other fast food, and teach the kids to really enjoy these places. If they still want the more commercial fast food joint, it's usually just for the toy and you can buy those individually anyway. But as you said - you need to be psyched up to be strong, yourself. Because if you're not, you'll only sabotage yourself and could end up worse off than if you gave up trying to diet, for now. Feeling guilty is not a good way to manage a diet. It's better to consciously make a decision to not diet, for now, so you don't have to feel guilty. telling yourself you SHOULD diet, but eating the wrong things anyway - it's much more damaging. It's all the disadvantages of being on a diet, with all the disadvantages of eating the foods you crave, with none of the advantages of either. Marg [/QUOTE]
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