The Fear of the Unknown

There was once upon a time when I looked upon special events fondly. Especially those that revolved around food. Birthday dinners out had me rubbing my hands together in anticipation. Family reunions filled me with an inordinate amount of glee. Thanksgiving and Christmas? Well, let's just say that the pleasure I experienced at the thoughts of those holiday meals can only be rivaled by antics that occur behind closed bedroom doors. Special events with food were better than a birthday card with money inside.

Things change, though, when you start trying to lose weight. The smallest events that loom ahead can cause even the most disciplined of us to break out into a cold sweat and search the corners of our minds for some valid excuse to bail out of the whole thing.

Thus, I find myself in the throes of a predicament. We're taking my son, Logan, out to Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow at 1pm for a reward meal. And tomorrow, at 5:30pm...is my weigh-in at Weight Watchers.

The only defense I can offer up for scheduling the event on the same day as my weigh in is that I must be slipping into the early stages of Alzheimer's. Before you know it, I'll be sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home somewhere, talking to my imaginary friend and painting the walls with my own poo.

So much suspense has built up around my house for this trip, that there is no way that I could postpone it for another day. Well, I suppose I could but the mental warfare tactics of two preschoolers would be too harsh a punishment to bear.

So it's off to Chuck E. Cheese I will go tomorrow, a few mere hours separating me from the meal there and my appointment with the scale.

We have a very great Chuck E. Cheese here. They have an incredible salad bar that is always very well stocked and very fresh. It's hardly used, because who would want a salad when there's so much yummy pizza and breadsticks to be had? So I have planned to order the salad bar for myself, and give myself a two slice limit on the pizza. I'm hoping that I can be strong enough to shun the pizza altogether, but come on, who are we talking about here? I'm not freaking Stonewall Jackson. We all know I'm going to be dipping into that pizza. I can only hope that the threat of a weigh in a few hours later can keep me sane, thus thwarting me from picking up the whole tray and diving in.

This happens quite often now. Events that I used to look forward to with a delicious sense of anticipation now strike fear into my heart. Vacations send me into a panic, and I end up packing more food to take with me than clothing. When a holiday meal looms heavy in the future, I'm on the computer searching low point recipes to make and take with me so fast and furious that I'm quite certain I've worn my fingerprints into the keyboard. And birthday parties? My only defense is to sleep as late as I possibly can, so that I simply won't have time to eat anything before I get there.

Weight Watchers has a great little feature that they thoughtfully added into the program for just such occasions. You have 35 extra points per week, and you can earn more points for doing certain types of activity. Those points only stretch so far, though, if you spend 68 points on Thanksgiving dinner like I did this year. Quandaries such as these are what those of us who are attempting to make ourselves smaller people dread. How in the world are we supposed to stay the course of our weight loss plan, when dear, sweet Aunt Bessie is standing there telling you that you look so thin that one piece of her Double Decadent Chocolate Mousse cake with strawberries won't hurt you? What we don't dare tell Aunt Bessie is that we don't want a piece of her cake. We want to wretch it from her frail wrinkly hands, run at breakneck speed to hide in the closet and devour every decadent morsel without the benefit of such extravagances as eating utensils or breathing.

There's only so much you can do about upcoming events that have the potential to totally wreck your points budget.

1) You can plan what you're going to eat based on what you know or are pretty sure will be available. This, of course, hinges on your ability to go up to the buffet that your father-in-law insisted on having his birthday dinner at, and fill your plate with the grilled chicken and veggies you planned on versus the fried shrimp, tacos and lasagna you really want.

2) You can do some clever point arranging. For example, I currently get 35 points per day. If I eat very few points throughout the remainder of the day and have any weekly or activity points that I can use, I can often manage a dinner out somewhere without an extraordinary amount of effort. On the flip side, though, if you go out to a restaurant for dinner having used all but 10 of your daily points, only have 5 weekly points left, and the most activity you've gotten that week was breaking out into a sweat because you couldn't find the remote control, then you're not going to do so well once you get to the restaurant.

3) If you have a complete relapse and find yourself shoveling in fatty foods so quickly that you fear you might actually gnaw one of your own fingers off, there is still hope that you can recoup that terrible eating day. Watch yourself closely on the rest of the days until your weigh in, get in as much activity as possible, and hit your knees every night and attempt to strike a deal with God.

As for me, I'm hoping that our excursion to Chuck E. Cheese will not totally kill my weigh-in. I plan to hit the salad bar, keep the pizza consumption to a minimum, and try to avoid eating anything high in points before we go. I've also had my husband make a solemn vow to me that once I grab for that second slice of pizza, he will lean over and tell the whirlwind that is masquerading as my three year old son that it's time to play games now. That will get me away from the food if nothing else does.

So, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, I will not eat. Please keep my plans from going south, and put your loving hand firmly over my mouth. If I binge before I weigh, it'll result in a price I cannot pay. So salad is good, and pizza is bad. Please Lord give me more control than I've ever had.

Amen!