Make Believe

by Kris Pitcher

As a little girl I played make believe a lot. It was in the days when kids got together to play, we even played...outside. I know!

It's only natural that the spirit of make believe worked it's way into my adult life, and ultimately into my dieting life. Not coming together yet? Don't worry the connection is just scary.

Well, maybe not scary. But when I first started dieting, my make believe skills came right into high gear creating all kinds of "diet goodies". Now, diet goodies are like jumbo shrimp a great big oxymoron.

I'm not saying you are a moron. I'm saying I was pretending I could have goodies when I was cutting those very things out of my eating plan. It was make believe. For instance, my famous protein powder cake.

You take one scoop protein powder, an egg white, a teaspoon of cocoa powder, and a packet of truvia. Mix that up and put it in the microwave for around 25 seconds. The timing is experimental. Too long and it's a sponge you can't even wash the dishes with.

But the point is, I shouldn't be telling my brain we can eat cake while we are dieting. It's make believe. And I hear people telling me all about their make believe food they are crafting out of "legal" ingredients and I just sigh inside.

The real leap is that when I stopped making believe food, I actually had an easier time dieting. I was sending different messages to my brain. I had jumped over the goodie chasm in my mind and I was able to walk down the path without this big "thing" in my way.

You can make believe food if you want. But I'm done - I've made the shift. And that is no make believe.