You are what you eat...

'I eat so little, yet I am fat' seems a common complaint.

Incidentally, SP used to work as a Dietitian in UK and her last post was as Chief Dietitian at Seacroft Hospital, Leeds, way back in 1982!

For weight-conscious British, knowing you are a dietitian, topics on ‘weight-reducing diets’ are likely to be asked at social meetings. In hospital, her frankness in telling off some over-weight women who gave all sorts of reasons for not reducing their weights had made her someone to be avoided, if possible. Some actually asked, ‘Is the Chinese Dietitian on duty today?’ while hoping for a negative reply.

Some ‘reasons’ given were ‘I drink only dry wines’ ‘I eat so little at lunch and dinner’ and when questioned further about tea and coffee times, ‘and some chocolates, but just a bit’.

Unlike her ex-boss, Nikki, the District Dietitian, SP had been rather lax with me, which explains my over-weight size. On our last trip when we met, Malcolm described his wife as ‘Gestapo in drag’ and he whispered to us that he used to have ‘fish and chips’ at work (when Nikki is not within hearing distance)!

But as they say, ‘you are what you eat’ and we have to accept the effects of what was eaten, no use in explaining otherwise. Someone must have took the trouble to compile the following:

Notes on Dieting
1. If you eat something, but no one else sees you eat it, it has no calories.
2. When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled by the diet soda.
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count as long as you don't eat more than they do.
4. Foods used for medicinal purposes never count. e.g. hot chocolate, brandy, toast, Sara Lee cheesecake.
5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
6. Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. e.g. milk duds, buttered popcorn, junior mints and Tootsie Rolls.
7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage.
8. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.
9. If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons have no calories. e.g. peanut butter on a knife, ice cream on a spoon.
10.Food of the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other.


These two cartoons borrowed from Randy Glasbergen seem so appropriate.