1. Eat at the mall. For decades, I just shopped and went home. Now, I am a slave to the food court. I blame Cinnabon. There are 750 Cinnabon franchises and I have eaten at 428 of them.
2. Reminisce about past meals. I can’t remember the password to my bank account, but I can describe (in detail) meals I had four years ago.
3. Stash candy. My grandparents had a crystal candy dish, and to children who only got candy at Easter and Halloween, it was truly a glorious thing. My mother had a taste for candy and we knew it was in the house somewhere, but the same woman who hid our Christmas presents in the same spot in her closet every year, managed to find a perfect hiding spot for candy. And, I’m convinced she ate the wrappers, too. I am sorry to say I have a candy drawer. And, it’s a big one.
4. Eating one meal while planning another. I try not to, but while I am eating breakfast, I am thinking about lunch and dinner. That scares me.
5. Eat standing up at the sink. I do this after clearing the table of dishes. Now, I could talk about researchers claiming that food, while eaten standing up, has fewer calories. But, I know those researchers weren’t scientists. They were just women like me. In self defense, I only eat those things that would be a terrible waste if they went down the garbage disposal.
6. Become a recipe junkie. It’s the photos. If I see a photo of a scrumptious meal, I have to have that recipe. I will drool as I read off the ingredients, rip it out of the newspaper or magazine, scan it and send it to my recipe junkie friends, and put it in my “recipe file” knowing that I will never make it. And, I need the recipe for everything I eat at a party, even though I know it only tastes good because I didn’t have to cook it.
7. Forage for food. If I get stuck somewhere and miss meal time, I will eat anything I can get my hands on. A lint-covered cough drop from the bottom of my purse is not off limits. I would suck the mint flavoring off a toothpick, and not think twice.
8. Forget about sharing. I have convinced myself that you only have to share when the other person is aware there is something to be shared. Let’s say a relative sends a small box containing half a dozen chocolates. You mentally determine that three of those are yours. You eat your three. Then it occurs to you that the other person isn’t home, so doesn’t know how many there were, so you eat another one, ready to claim that there were only four in the box. Then, it really gets ugly as you realize they have no idea anything arrived, so you eat them all and take the empty box outside to the trash can and bury it under something else. This is hypothetical, of course.
9. Give into urges. I was shopping alone; there was no one to tell me not to, so I bought ten packages of Marshmallow Peeps for ten dollars. How could I pass up such a good deal? And really, each box of fifteen peeps is one serving.
10. Eat on the way home from the grocery store. I only started to do this recently, and this is what motivated me to make this list. I put the bags of groceries in the back of my Jeep, start to close the door, and then suddenly I will rip through all the bags trying to find the box of cookies. Once I find it, I throw it through the car to the front seat. That way I am keeping my shame to myself. Then, I will proceed to eat half the box on the trip home. The really sad part is…I only live half a mile from the store.
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