Friday, 5 August 2016

Tomato or no tomato, that is the question

Usually when write here and I present a problem I have its solution lined up and ready to jump onto a new paragraph, so this is a bit of an unusual post for me.

Last Summer I was on a diet when I went back home. In my endless pilgrimage to all my relatives and selected friends, I called on an elderly cousin for lunch. The day before she'd asked me what I wanted for lunch so I replied I'd love her famous breaded chicken fillets. 'What with? Chips or rice?', she asked again. And so I said I wanted neither, just the chicken and a sliced tomato as a side.

The following day I arrived at her house with a hearty appetite, only to be greeted by a tomatoless table. I found instead that the tomato had been merciless replaced by a big plate of chips placed right in front of my plate for my own convenience and the imminent death of my diet. When I politely asked about the tomato my cousin replied something like 'I heard you said tomato, but I know that deep down you wanted chips, so I made them especially just for you.'

The end of this story is not important, but I'm left pondering what could I have done.

What do you do when you are desperately fighting yourself to keep your diet going and your loved ones decide to sabotage you instead of supporting your decision? And they do this out of love, believing that pleasing you now is somehow better than helping you reach your long term goal. What do you do? Do you say no to the chips and sulk? Do you pick a fight with a relative you only get to see once or twice a year? Or do you eat them out of courtesy even though you didn't ask for them and they're actually bad for you?

I'm trying hard to keep my diet going and I know whatever weight I lose could easily be gained when I'm away on holiday. Heck, my lost weight may even bring friends to stay and make my thighs their new home! So I'm conscious of the traps ahead and I would like to avoid them.

The question is - how do you do it?

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