Fade to Life: Everything Precious Comes with a Price: Small Pleasures--Great Pain

I'll tell you what's on my mind; the power of food! It is the one thing I can procure and enjoy without the help of anyone and now, it is off limits unless I want to play by the rules--again!!

Burst through the rules in one season of life

and the next season presents a new set!!

Here is the deal, I have become preoccupied with my "quality of life." I want to feel good and look good! I want to maintain my new found comfortable weight. I want to walk briskly. I want to feel the joy of going to my closet and selecting anything I want to wear with no limitations of whether or not it will fit. That, at this time is precious to me.

As my mother says,

"Everything precious comes with a price!"

Taste Buds Are Animals!!

One day I was tested and I won!

One day, a few months ago, I was a captured audience in the beauty shop chair when the husband came in with cooked food from Annie Mae's, the local soul food restaurant. Fried chicken, peach cobbler, corn bread, gravy, the works. They offered me some--I said no. They started eating it while I was under the dryer. I remember what that smell use to do to me and my body. As I rose to leave, I walked over to it and looked at the food and the overweight person eating it.

It was fried chicken, fried to perfection, and all that goes with it. I stared it down. Then I confidently rejected it; mind, body, and taste buds. Funny thing; my body DID NOT crave it. My mind DID NOT want it. But those taste buds were dancing and singing "wouldn't it be nice to crunch into that chicken wing?! Just like animals--see it and eat it!! My answer was hell no!! I retuned home to my sautéed fish, rice, okra, and Brussels sprouts and celebrated my victory of mind control. My journey to fitness was not interrupted!! WOW!

That was then. Today, I ran into a doctor that performs stomach augmentation for weight reduction. Being the inquisitive person I am--I could not pass up the opportunity to gain inside information. I asked him why is it people are willing to go under the knife to remove fat but are unwilling to give up food? Why would someone undergo surgery and still overeat? I wanted to know, what is the formula for maintaining the perfect body weight?

He said it is simple. We must not only change our lifestyle of eating but we must like it. He said it is about small portions of the right food and continuity of eating it. Go figure. In order for the metabolism to function on your behalf, you must keep it fueled with the right kind of food on a regular basis. It is like keeping a fire burning in the fireplace.

In addition, he said, we must keep moving, everyday. The older you are--the more you have to move to keep the metabolism burning. Then he shed light on my new found joy of beating the weight loss game! He said the success I had enjoyed by getting my weight to the desired level simply means I have to "kick it up a notch." What the body gets use to, it holds in contempt. I must move more and eat more of the right kind of food!! Whose the boss here!?

After I left him, I was driving down the street and developed this craving for raisinets!! I pulled over, bought a bag and devoured the whole bag. Driving down the street, in defiance, I ate them one at a time. Now, I am pondering the consequences. What is it about life that makes all choices so consequential? Why is it that the pleasure comes so easy and last so briefly and the pain comes later and lasts so long? Because the "boss" says so. We all know who HE is!!

Life, what a wonderful and evolving process! Stay tuned.

Ivory Dorsey