Battle of the Buffet, Part I

So. Do you feel waterlogged yet? This morning I dutifully filled a family sized water jug with eight, 16 ounce glasses of water. By 6:00, I had guzzled the last of it, and I don't think I have EVER seen the inside of my bathroom that often in the space of ten hours. I guess I felt I just had to get something right after my miserable failure in the valley of the shadow of the dessert line last night.

I did so well at dinner. The potluck was a soup fellowship, so I wandered up and down the three tables FULL of soup crocks, looking for just the right supper for my little styrofoam bowl. I felt like Indiana Jones painstakingly selecting the Holy Grail. "No . . . the skinny woman wouldn't choose the cream based soup. No . . . the svelt woman wouldn't choose the succulent broccoli and cheese . . ." Finally, the slim and delicious choice appeared before me in the form of a turkey and vegetable mixture; and ironically, when I got back to the table, I discovered I had managed to choose my grandmother's soup out of like, forty crockpots. Incidentally, nobody makes better soup than my grandma.

Anyway, with my soup, I ate five whole grain Ritz crackers mingled among a tablespoon of cheese spread. I tasted, I chewed, I swallowed, and I felt confident as I approached the dessert table. Alas, I faltered in the face of the brownies, the tassies, the coconut cream cake, the pineapple upside down delight, the gingernsnaps, the biscotti, and the peanut butter brittle.

My first mistake? Choices. My commitment for the evening had been either two cookies or one dessert. This commitment involved too many avenues for my alter-ego's surreptitious mental processes. Consequently, when my grandmother offered to split a very yummy looking chocolate and peanut butter something-or-other with me, did I head back to the table? Nooooo. I thought to myself, "Let's see--is this a dessert or a cookie? It's kind of puddingy like cake. That means I can have 1/2 of another dessert. But if its a cookie, I can have another 1 and a half cookies. Yep. I think it's a cookie. Definitely a cookie."

Back at the table, I felt as guilty as a well-dressed baby with her patties in the potty. On my plate, was 1/2 of a chocolate and peanut butter something-or-other, a truffle, a toffee square, and a caramel browny.

I blame this on my printer. It had to run out of ink at the worst possible moment, and I was not able to print my Potluck Psalm. If I had only had my Potluck Psalm . . . .

I probably would have done exactly the same thing, because truth be told, I am the only one responsible for the food that goes in my mouth. I am responsible for my choices and my actions, so something that has to go right now, is the blame shifting. My years of dieting have been fraught with "If only I hadn't been so busy, if only I hadn't been so stressed, if only the children had napped when they were supposed to, if only it hadn't been the holidays, if only we'd had more money to buy better groceries, if only we hadn't had to stop at that fast food restaurant" and on and on and on. I have been the queen of excuses.

Well, no more. I'm giving up my throne, and I'm moving to a new kingdom where I'm going to be busy but better, stressed but slim, exhausted but exercised, and hot right through the holidays. The next time I face a buffet, I will be ready, and I will win.

Stay tuned for Beating the Buffet, Part 2, which takes us to the Golden Corral the night before last. Don't miss the epic struggle between good and evil, playing out over the mashed potatoes and gravy.