Temptation, $1.25

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Have a favorite snack? Show it!


Now, John, what did we say about food-related assignments?  I did ask you to lay off them for a while.  Given my ongoing struggles with obesity, such assignments leave a bad taste in my mouth.  Oh, I'll do it anyway, but under protest.  Please, John, these food-related entries are positively painful for some of us to do!

This is one of my drawers at work, newly filled with "100 Calorie Packs" of crackers and oatmeal cookies, gum, low-carb meal bars and Atkins candy.  This stuff should last me at least a week, possibly two weeks.  In fact, I didn't use any of it today except some of the cinnamon Dentyne "Fire" gum.  The no-carb macaroons have been in there for a few months now.

The crackers are mostly meant to supplement the crackers that come with the packs of tuna salad I sometimes buy.  It is not possible (well, it may be possible, but it's highly improbable) to get all the tuna from the can to fit onto the crackers provided.  Technically, the tuna is more often breakfast for me than a snack.  I'm getting sick of the stuff, anyway.

Now, you may well feel that crackers and cookies, candy and protein bars are neither the world's tastiest snacks nor the world's healthiest ones, even with the low calorie or low carb labeling.  You're probably right.  They're a compromise.  I just haven't had a great track record buying and eating carrots and celery what were neither dried out nor brown nor slimy when I got to them.  Heck, sometimes they're that way the day I buy them!  This other stuff may not be quite as healthy, but it's got a longer shelf life.


The contents of my drawer are also a lot healthier than some of the other alternatives available to me.  Like  many places, the building where I work has food machines.  The one on the second floor is mostly chips and candy.  I'd be lying if I said I'd never purchased anything from it.  When I succomb to this temptation, typically on a day when I'm especially sleepy, I try to go for the trail mix (C2, $.75): peanuts, sunflower seeds and off-brand candy-coated chocolate.  It's the most benign option here.  Today, however, when I went to take these pictures, it wasn't an option at all.  In its place was a toffee-coated peanut candy.  No thanks.  I was only there to take pictures, anyway.

The range of choices - and temptations - is higher downstairs.  Here I can get the tuna and crackers ($1.75), or meat, cheese and crackers (also $1.75), or a sandwich (prices vary), or less healthy entrees or treats. 

Downstairs, when I'm not getting the items mentioned in the previous sentence for breakfast or lunch, I only have eyes for the ice cream.  You see, I have to pass the Blue Bunny Chocolate Eclair ice cream bars every day on my way home.  Most days it's no problem, but more than once, $1.25 has left my wallet, and one of those bunnies has hopped into my purse.  I've got to ban those bunnies! 

The thing is, chocolate and ice cream are the foods that I crave the most.  If I don't buy one fully-loaded ice cream bar, sooner or later I'll buy a five-pack of the low carb version and bring that home instead.  Then I've got five of the things instead of one, and they're not that much lower in calories or carbs than the normal kind. 

John would say that the key is not to eat ice cream at all.  But can I do that?  Really?

Maybe I should try. Again.

I'm going to the gym now.

Karen

******* Later ******

I know I pushed myself: I clocked 138 calories in 27 minutes.  Now I'm having an asthma attack. (Cough cough.)  But I know someone who burns about three times as many calories in the same period of time.  Phooey.