Saying No to Donuts

This morning a coworker brought in piles of fresh, warm donuts of all kinds. OMG the smell of bakery freshness wafting from these boxes was almost intoxicating. I used to love donuts. I peered in the boxes and inadvertantly inhaled more of the heady scent. Oh yes, I remember the taste and the mouth-feel of fresh, warm donuts well. I was tempted. I really was.

This was a true test of my willpower. One thought was enough to keep my hands off these evil bakery treats: Donuts are nothing but refined white flour, soaked in trans-fats and covered in sugar. There is absolutely nothing beneficial to your body in there. Not only is it empty calories, it will spike your blood sugar like crazy (unless you scarf some proteins to balance it) and the trans-fats are worse than lard. I might as well snack on rat poison. My desire to live a long and healthy life is much too strong to be willing to subject my body to that kind of internal abuse. So I said no to donuts. I have been successfully donut-free for two years now.

Eating right is nothing but a string of little battles. Each time you come upon a choice, you know in your heart what the right choice is. You have the strength to make the right choice. Winning each of these little battles is how you start winning the war.

Battling gluttony with willpower

I watched an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and they were helping out this couple who gained 40 pounds since their wedding... which wasn't too long ago from what I understand. The husband said he could easily eat an entire tub of ice cream in a day. Not a pint, a tub. Okay that's just sick. And the wife said she eats her cereal with half and half. WTF? Isn't whole milk rich enough, she has to eat it with half and half?? And they're baffled why they've gained so much weight in such a short period of time? What's wrong with them??

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I adore ice cream, perhaps more than others (but obviously not more than that guy). However I know of this thing called moderation. Some people don't. It surprises me sometimes how little common sense some people have when it comes to food choices. They make weird little rationalizations in their minds to justify these unwise choices. "I walked around the block today, so I can eat a giant bowl of ice cream as a reward."

The thing is, they most likely know that it's an unwise choice, but they do it anyway and figure they'll make up for it later. Operating on such a mindset usually means that "later" never comes. Willpower isn't just the strength to say no to these unwise choices. It's the strength to make the day to day commitment to health. It's knowledge that every day's choices has consequences. It's believing the fact that today's choices affect your health later. If you don't make the right choices now, your health won't improve later.

I'm just too cheap

Because I'm a big ol' cheapskate, I mostly likely won't be spending $13 on a stainless steel water bottle. Instead I went to Trader Joe's and wandered through their beverage aisle until I found one whose container was made of glass, had a recloseable top, and was narrow enough to fit in my cupholder. I think that's the biggest trick to finding a glass bottle that will work for you. Most of them are too wide. But if you're just going to use it around the house, then any old bottle will do. The Snapple ones are good.

Plastic water bottles - yet another source of carcinogens (sigh)

Over the weekend, a friend was telling me how regular water bottles can leach chemicals into your water, especially when in a hot environment like your car. Being the stingy tightwad I am, all the bottles I use are of the cheaply available kind that I get for free whenever water is given away at events, like Aquafina or Costco branded water. Naturally I was alarmed to hear this news. He recommended polycarbonate bottles instead, which is a stiffer plastic than that of standard water bottles.

Being the skeptic I often am, I rarely take someone's word for fact until I research it myself, so I did some reading. Apparently your standard plastic water bottle does indeed leach stuff called PBA (which is short for something, but I don't remember what. You probably don't care anyway.) which is a carcinogen and linked to breast cancer, among other things. Yikes!

I then found out that polycarbonate bottles aren't immune to this either, but they are at least resistant to it. They leach these chemicals into your water when they're new, then the levels decrease. Cleaning it with strong detergents releases even more of these chemicals from the plastic. So I guess polycarbonate bottles aren't the answer either.

The sites I read recommended either glass or stainless steel bottles instead, as these materials won't leak anything into your water. One that was mentioned was called Klean Kanteen. I hate it when they decide to replace C's with K's just to be cute, but that's beside the point. I'm going to have to shell out about $13 to get one, but I think that's much better considering the alternative. Hmm, $13 or cancer, gee I wonder which is worse?