My daughter Laura, the school psychologist, gave me this treat-eating holiday advice, based on recent psychological studies:
When you use self-control to resist treats, you reinforce your ability to use willpower. So each time you make a healthy choice, you increase your chances of exercising self-control in the future.
I tried this when I baked cheese straws. Worked pretty well. When a cheese straw called to me, I resisted. Not easy, but I did it. Each time I resisted, I felt empowered.
I used it when I baked sugar cookies and bourbon balls too. I allowed myself one cookie, at the end, before I packed them away. More empowerment!
I lost it on Christmas Eve, when Laura brought out the peanut butter buckeyes.
Curses! But my goal is to get it back. The empowered feeling. The I-have-willpower feeling.
“This is the wedding year,” Laura reminds me.
Not just any old wedding year.
HER wedding year.
Mother of the Bride dress here I come.
So I’m going to keep trying this technique, since Naked Church from last year was a failure. I knew I’d wimp out when the church bell rang.
Menopause weight gain continues to fluster me. Recent studies suggest menopausal women burn less calories metabolically. Ha! So menopausal weight gain isn’t just menopausal ladies eating too much and exercising less.
What about you? Do you think The Great Pause has done nasty things to your weight or are cookies just hard to resist?
Cartoon: I found this on Facebook. We never learn the names of the artists, but hats off to the world’s clever, creative people.
Barbara Younger
Barbara Younger blogs from her home in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Along with Friend for the Ride: Encouraging Words for the Menopause Roller Coaster (http://friendfortheride.com), she writes books for children and adults. She lives in an old house with her husband Cliff. and collections of everything from dolls to buttons to bookmarks. She's the mother of two grown daughters and the grandmother to one adorable baby boy!
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