3:00 snapshot #663

[urbpan]

This is as good a time as any to announce my New Years Resolution to give up sweets. As you can see, my office is a hotbed of ice cream (CANDY CANE! YuM) and donuts. Also chocolates, candy, cookies, ice cream cake, pastries, and so on. I could stand to eat fewer empty calories, and since I'm not giving up booze (did that for a month--man parties without booze are boring) it may as well be sweets. Moderation is the better way to do it, but I seem incapable of moderation. I went from being a vegetarian for 15 years to eating pork sausage at least 3 times a week. (Also, I recently realized that what they call "binge drinking" is the activity that I call "drinking." That's a different issue, I guess.)

If there are donuts in the office or cookies at home I WILL EAT THEM, not because I derive any special pleasure from them, but because they are there. Depriving myself of them categorically is my only route to avoiding this behavior. Which brings up an interesting point: what counts? Well, I've pretty much listed what counts: candy, pastries, and ice cream. What doesn't count? Sweet drinks, soft or hard--except those that include ice cream. Jelly, even though it's mostly corn syrup, doesn't count, in fact I'm going to give myself a pass on anything that it primarily fruit. I love fruit. I could give up chocolate for life tomorrow and not care, but if I had to go a week without fruit I'd be sad. Maple syrup doesn't count, as long as I'm putting it on a breakfast thing like waffles. My rules. Also I can eat blueberry pie.

For my birthday this year I will specially request something which is made of mostly fruit, instead of a birthday cake. My coworkers (who today provided candy cane and red velvet cake ice cream, dunkin donuts munchkins, and caramel filled chocolate bells, in addition to the pound of fudge I got for xmas) have been notified; they think I am insane.