RASPBERRY /
CHOCOLATE / WHIPPED CREAM ... OH MY!
23 October 2002
That's what I had for dessert the other night. A dense chocolate
sheet cake wrapped around a humongous glop of whipped cream, frosted with thick fudge
frosting and sitting in a pool of raspberry syrup.
How many points was that?
It reminded me so much of my favorite fancy dessert when we were
growing up--chocolate cream roll. Except for the raspberry sauce. My mother would bake a
sponge cake on a cookie sheet, then cut off the crisp ends (my sister and I got to eat the
ends), roll the cake up in a powdered-sugar sprinkled tea towel and let it cool. When it
was cool, she'd spread the inside with real whipped cream, roll back up, and frost with
bittersweet chocolate frosting.
Oh man was that wonderful.
(are we getting a sense of when I started packing on the pounds??)
So when I saw this concoction on the menu and the waitress went into
ecstasy describing it, I was tempted. Normally, I don't order dessert--even at my heaviest
(perhaps especially at my heaviest--don't want the folks around me thinking that
the fat lady actually eats desserts, now). But when the others at the table started
deciding to eat dessert too, all good resolve melted and I ordered it. We did share
it--Walt took about 1/4, and others had tastes, but I had the lion's share--or should that
be the hippo's share?
It was an interesting weekend, food-wise. Repeating what I have said over and over
again, this is a new lifestyle, not a diet, so I didn't bring points books with me. By now
I know pretty much what points normal things are (cereal and milk, for example) and I have
gotten into a routine of eating, so I could pretty much eyeball things. But then there
were the extras--the cheese and crackers in the garden room at cocktail time, the bottles
of wine I shared, the hot cookies at 10 p.m.... It wasn't that I was "falling off my
diet," I was just not going to deny myself when all around me were indulging. One
weekend, I figured, wouldn't kill me. (OK--two weekends, if you count the
wedding last weekend too...but there is nothing coming up this week, so I should be free
and clear.)
I also worked out both days in the fitness room, and took two bike
rides, so got my exercise, albeit less than usual.
And I'm learning how to incorporate raspberry chocolate days into a
"lifestyle." I didn't count points while we were in Ashland, but I tried to make
wiser choices. At both dinners I chose fish. I'm sure they were high point
fish dishes, but I know that fish is better than beef or lamb (and they were yummy). I had
my usual breakfast the day we ate at the hotel, and when we met my friend, the doctor, for
breakfast at this place that has dozens of delicious-sounding "interesting"
dishes, I chose "Moroccan oatmeal." I've grown to like oatmeal. I have it with
blueberries and Splenda most mornings and I'm sure that this dish with dried apricots and
dates was probably higher in points than what I usually eat, but it was far better for me
than some cheese-laden exotic omelette.
Once I got home, I started aiming for the low end of my points but
still when I approached WeightWatchers this morning, I was a bit nervous. Would I add yet another
weight gain to the past two weeks?
I got caught up in the trap of "numbers." I wore my
lightest weight clothes and yes, I even took off my shoes (as I did last week). The
"numbers" mattered to me.
But I didn't have to worry. I lost 1.6 lbs--which is a genuine loss
from last week, since I removed my shoes last week too.
I don't stay for meetings much any more, so I'm paying $10 a week just to weigh in. I
sometimes think this is pretty silly, since I could follow my weight at the office, on the
accurate doctor's scale, but I'm paying for the accountability. It would be easy to
just let go and go back to sausage MacMuffin and Hagen Daas, but knowing that I was facing
"The Scale" on Tuesdays kept me on the (more or less) straight and narrow.
Besides that, I have actually noticed a change in (some of) my
tastes. I actually love broccoli salad. It's no longer something I should eat to
get my greens in. I've succumbed to all the hype about how good for you oatmeal is, and I
do enjoy it--especially since Steve introduced me to Splenda, which makes sweetening
things "legally" a pleasure, not something you cringe at.
Into each lifestyle some raspberry/chocolate/whipped cream will fall, but--you know
what? It didn't taste as good as I thought it would. That surprised me. I would
have been better off with a bunch of grapes--and probably enjoyed them more.
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