It’s the little things that count

I didn’t do very well this week — a gain of two pounds! Ouch. The annoying thing is I really don’t feel I went off my diet. I didn’t splurge on cream sauces or treat myself to gooey chocolate fudge candy. No bags of Cheetos at one sitting or a half a pound of Parmigiano-Reggiano dipped in clover honey. If I had, I might think it was worth it.

But, just as I know I can lose weight by changing little things in my diet, I realize I can just as easily (correction: more easily) GAIN weight with those little, almost unnoticeable changes. I usually allow myself a single Toffifay candy in the afternoon but if I remember correctly, there were a couple days in there when I had two of them. Then there was that one evening I wrapped my cracker in thin slices of baby Swiss cheese rather than going au naturale. And I have been cooking with more butter than usual. Hmmmmm…..

Gifts of food, like this fantastic basket from Oregon Maiden Gift Baskets, do NOT contain "countable" calories!

Well, even though these “slips” probably accounted for some of it, they didn’t give me an extra two pounds in one week. The other culprit was probably water (my stand-by excuse for putting on weight!). Still, the small things really do count, and I can’t continue to fib to myself and say they don’t. That reminds me of a list of “calories that don’t count” I read. There are a million variations of this list on the web, but here’s mine:

• Small pieces of crackers or cookies (less than 1/2 the whole).
• Food I have to taste while cooking — just to see if it’s done right.
• Food or drink I take for “medicinal” purposes (including an energy burst or to prevent a headache).
• Food other people give me as a gift — it’s not fair to count these because I *have* to eat it to be polite.
• Any piece of food that has fewer than 10 calories (a cashew nut has only 8!) Note: 1/2 hour must elapse between pieces or they do count.
• Anything that can be drizzled on (even that fantastic orange-balsamic vinaigrette I bought at the Rendezvous Grill and Tap Room in Welches, Oregon last week (we had it in this sensational salad of fresh spinach with grilled pears, Oregon blue cheese and toasted hazelnuts and I just HAD to bring a pint home!).
• Spray “butter” — even if I pour it on. After all, it says there are no calories in a serving, so 20 servings would be 20 times zero = 0.
• Anything 1/4 of a normal serving or less (i.e., the bag says a serving size is 3/4 cup and I have a cup. What’s a quarter cup between friends?).
• Anything I eat the day after I had a great weigh in!

So, this week, to turn things around for me, I’ll watch the little things I do and remember that I want to lose weight MORE than I want to eat that extra Toffifay (at least a little bit more, which is all it takes!).