FAT HEAVEN OR SKINNY HELL?





Although not raised, culturally, as a Latter-Day Saint, my body been decidedly Mormon and Orthodox Jewish since birth.


I never liked coffee (although I certainly tried), I can't hold my drink (or my head or any other part of my body when I drink alcohol), and my entire gastric system riots when I eat any pork.


But there several gray areas with LDS dietary rule.


Ultra-conservative Mormons feel that any drink with caffeine is somehow as evil as coffee. They also believe in voting Republican, watching Glenn Beck and Fox News, and never teaching a lesson with a tablecloth, flower arrangement and a hand-out.


Moderate Mormons think that you will not be sent directly to outer darkness if you are not a dead-dog Republican, you can drink Diet Coke as long as it's not in public, and you can watch Comedy Central on T.V.


Liberal Mormons see no problem with Mt. Dew, supporting human and civil rights, and supporting President Obama.


So here is my personal quandary.


I normally drink two Diet Cokes a day - discreetly, in private, in the dark of my closets (my bishop may be reading this blog).


Today I drank FOUR - and I know it was the reason I got by with less food.


So, the question is - should I be good and end up in heaven as a chubby cherub, or be a skinny woman who ends up in the Mormon equivalent of hell (which actually is the Democrat National Convention in an election year)?

EFFECT OF SEMI-FLUID ON THE HIPPOCAMPAL DOPAMINE RELEASE

I've been doing so well with the "not-eating-after-7-p.m." that I figured it was time to add something new (keep confusing that metabolism, girlfriend).

Have one liquid meal a day.

I have heard all the arguments against these type of diets - yes, you lose weight, but as soon as you begin eating again, it all comes back on.

And I have personally experienced not being to chew ANYthing for two months - it ain't fun, but I also lost around 30 lbs.... with the problem being there I had to gain 25 lbs. before they would do the surgery on my jaw.

But hey, just once a day, let's try soup for a meal - and then I can have my creamy tomato soup and not feel guilty.

So tonight - it's cold and blustery, so I have a bottle of water and one very hot personal-size soup. And then rushed off to my regular Wednesday church meeting....

With the sensation of an turbulent ocean being hit by a hurricane in my stomach.

I didn't realize 16 oz. of fluid could do that to you - but at least I haven't been tempted to eat anything else this evening - ugh, it's making me slightly nauseous just to have that thought.

And P.S. - that effect of semi-fluid diet breeding on the hippocampal dopamine release is actually a honest research paper... and yes, it makes no sense to me either.

AND THE TOTAL IS....

This past week I lost 2.5 lbs., so the total is 5.5

I'm happy with that.

Of course, I would be much happier with 45 lbs. gone, but if it was easy, we'd all be skinny, right?

HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?

I am trying to cope with a new wrinkle in my dieting system.

I have, for literally years, acted on the oft-quoted perhaps-urban-myth that many times our bodies are screaming "WATER" when we are hearing "FOOD"!

So I try drinking something before I actually eat something.

And I finally learned that milk shakes, slushies, and fruit-blend-special-drinks do not qualify as "water."

(But they sure do taste better.)

But now that an unusually cold winter has dawned on my south-east corner of a south-west state in the northern hemisphere (okay, Hope, you can stop now), I am learning a chilly fact (did you not get the message a few words back, girlfriend?).

Cold water just doesn't work.

And unfortunately, hot chocolate (200 calories if made with 2% milk) with four large marshmallows (an additional 200 calories), does.

Creamy tomato soup is slightly better; it's only 160.

But it's still not water, which has no calories at all.

Hot Tang is something I have not had in years; maybe that would work.

More tomorrow.

Unless, of course, it gets warmer here.