Diet Hypnosis

I had to fill a food plan for two days: write whatever I put in my mouth in the minute details. For breakfast, I wrote: boiled eggs, broccoli, black tea and witch brew. "Witch brew? What's that?" asked the trainer who also follows my nutrition.

Witch brew is the "green protein powder" I am obliged to swallow every morning, to my kids delight. They love to watch me swallow it with difficulty. "You won't see results unless you combine a strict diet with your training" he had warned.

I have been dieting for almost 2 long months. I had a midway break, a Garfield sort of dinner: lasagna! I aimed for that dinner. I wrote the date on a mental calendar. Lasagna in the horizon. The next break will come when I travel to Europe, where pastries, pizza and pasta are really worth the cheating.

But on Valentine breakfast I decided to feast. We broke dawn and ran to the closest manaesh bakery for the all-too-missed thyme Lebanese pizza. Granted I shared with the kids, but the 3 hours of working out with three different instructors justified the carb fest. I defied the nutrition conscious trainer: "so I had a carb fest, shoot me!"

The whole idea behind this hypnosis diet where he convinces me each time he weighs me in to remove one more desirable item off the meagre menu is that on the days or times that I do cheat, I am fully conscious of it. "I am cheating" as you swing by Tom Horton's for a tiny small donut ball, is better than a casual, almost unconscious dunkin' of a whole donut in a cappuccino! Indeed, even the cappuccino froth has been relegated to dreamland.

"Would you like some water with your water?" asked a friend at the movies. It has been a long time since I have refused to eat cinema pop-corn that another friend demystified by equating its calories to a whole burger. You won't get me close to a burger! It was the simplest way to stop me from eating cinema pop corn.

I therefore will continue this hypnotic diet which consists of no-carbs, no-sugar, no-dairy, no-poultry while I train with the guy who promises "measurable" results. If you want to see "the glass half full" it means I can eat all the vegetables I want and all the varieties of fish (but no canned processed tuna). I didn't cheat for a long time. But as time passed, with bad peer pressure, with infrequent mood swings, with random mood of defiance, I have cheated and I have bounced back on. Candy doesn't have sugar, does it?