Fasting, Scones, and 200 Hundred Decisions a Day
Someday soon there will be a blog entry entitled "The Month I Ate Scones." In early August, I decided I had to curb my habit of running to the local coffee shop for my usual (amazing) scone. So I thought I would learn to make scones and in the process, save myself a bit of money. Well, I became a master scone maker, saved a few bucks, and gained about ten pounds in six weeks. So much for wisdom.
My relationship to food is not one I think about much. Or at least, I never used to. As age creeps up on me though, my body is changing, and I think to myself, "Does it really have to be this way?" So I think, "be more healthy, exercise more, show great restraint, and be spiritual in your consumption of food" and all the while, I'm scarfing down scones and grape jelly. Days of fasting are especially ridiculous, battles growing to war-like proportion. I'm not exactly reduced to gnashing of teeth, but the gritting of said teeth is not unusual.
So I take some comfort in this article.
Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You. According to Prof. Brian Wansink's research, people make over 200 food decisions a day--and are outwitted at every turn. By KIM SEVERSON. [NYT > Health]
Turns out, I'm being cued right and left by packaging, by visual cues, by others eating around me. Once again--thank the Lord--it's not my fault.
In all seriousness, my attachment to food as comfort startles me. It seems such a simple thing. But the fact that our need for sustenance and energy gets laced with our desire for comfort and pleasure to the point where we can hardly tell the difference between "need" and "want" should be a warning. All the vices of life are a bit this way, having their origin in legitimate human need, yet somehow grow into something extreme for reasons as varied as people are unique.
If we make 200 food decisions a day, think of the hundreds of other decisions we make as we regulate our behavior concerning other needs and wants. It's easy to see why we all bow before the power of habit.
Let's see...breakfast...oatmeal or scones?
5:20:08 AM 
