Category Archives: Dieting

Chocolate Cake

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Chocolate

You’re being good and I am not.
I broke my diet and got caught.
I’d have resisted if I could,
but chocolate cake just looked so good.

I bought a piece, not a whole cake.
I thought a meal of it I’d make.
But now you feel you must rebut
my obvious need for chocolate.

Will you soon go? It’s getting late,
and there’s this chocolate on my plate.
And though I know it’s impolite,
the chances that I’ll share are slight.

Of your smug lecture I’ve had enough
and now it’s my turn to be tough.
If you must fall from your high throne
and dine on cake, go buy your own!

The prompt word today is slight.

“Diet”ribe

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DSC08682

 

“Diet”ribe

I have given up on oatmeal, overdosed on kale.
All these faddish food taboos have gone beyond the pale.
I do not count my calories, my glutens or my carbs.
The benefits for doing so are outweighed by the barbs.
I’m not turned on by Atkins. I can’t abide a fast.
I tried microbiotic, but the microbes didn’t last.

It’s become an epic battle when the girls go out to brunch.
It’s easier brokering world peace that where to go for lunch.
Before we take a mouthful, we must peruse all the ads
and compare what’s on the menu to the latest diet fads.
Then, once we find the perfect place and make the reservation,
Serafina calls me up to share her trepidation.

She’s started a new diet––something fabulously new––
and much as she hates to stir the pot, this restaurant won’t do.
We can’t go out for hamburgers. Laura’s a vegetarian.
She can’t abide the scent of flesh. She finds it most barbarian.
Of course, she will eat foodstuffs that are certified agrarian,
but salad’sout because my other friend is a fruitarian.

I asked them all to my house, bought exotic fruits and plums,
thinking a fruity salad would offend the fewest gums;
but a new friend cannot eat raw fruit. She finds it unhygienic,
and my artist friend will not eat foods she finds unphotogenic.
She balked at the rambutan and when she tried to swallow it,
choked and had to chug down a carafe of wine to follow it.

Molly is insisting on a diet ketogenic,
while Lucy won’t eat any vegetation that is scenic.
We’re reduced to no more dining out. Potlucks will have to do
with every guest providing whatever they can chew.
Me? I’ll bring a pizza. Pepperoni. Extra cheese.
And everyone can envy me as they eat what they please!

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night#204

BP and Me

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BP and Me

Cook a bowl of oatmeal and throw some apples in.
Cinnamon and cranberries and walnuts are no sin.
Gotta get the pressure down––of both my life and blood.
So no more salting French fries or pies of chocolate mud.
I exercise enough, I think, nighttimes in the pool;
but midnight trips out to the fridge brand me as a fool.

So a giant bowl of oatmeal with milk that is nonfat
and a bit more exercising where I once just sat
will guarantee I’ll live at least to one hundred twenty.
I’ll have lower blood pressure and zip I’ll have aplenty.
There is no secret to long life and staying young and burlier.
The answer lies in giving up life’s pleasures a bit earlier.

 

The prompt word today is “Giant.” (It’s not too obvious what this poem has to do with the prompt word until the second stanza, but originally, I had “giant bowl of oatmeal” in the first line. Alas, no rhyme presented itself, so “giant” got relegated to a bit further down in the poem and became less relevant.  Oh well. Main purpose of the prompts is to get us started, anyway.)

 

ice-cream-work-work

Top and Bottom

I pass it on my way back home from everywhere I go,
and every time my car just seems to naturally slow
and even if I’ve recently finished a big meal,
and much as I vow this time I won’t turn the wheel,
still something else takes over and I turn into the street
where the ice cream vendor sells his icy sweet.

I do not have to leave my car, just pull up to his booth some
and drive away in minutes with a treat that’s sweet and toothsome.
Vanilla on the bottom and strawberry on the top–
he has my order ready as I come to a full stop.
And since I always buy it when I’m on my way back home,
I eat all the ice cream, but I save my dogs the cone.

Though I think it’s my secret, I’m not fooling anyone;
for though they only see me when my ice creaming is done,
there is evidence of strawberry spilled down the front of me
as well as evidence behind that everyone can see.
This ice cream is delicious–never too bland or cloying,
yet I fear its overuse is interfering with my “boying.”

For though a gal might overlook the fact a guy is tubby,
I’ve yet to find the man who likes a woman who’s too chubby.
That’s why it’s been two months since my addiction I have kicked,
and in that time nary an ice cream have I ever licked.
So if you see that I’ve resumed this nasty ice cream habit,
you have my permission  to intervene and  grab it.

For I can wipe the Ice cream off both my blouse and lips,
but it’s not easily removed from down there on my hips
where you can see remains of it as I come and go.
Some deposited above, the rest seen far below.
In the absence of will power, I could use an ice cream cop
lest I wear vanilla on my bottom and strawberry on my top!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Breakdown.” Tell us about a habit you’d like to break.

Now, Voyager

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                                                          209a3984-32bf-375b-99f0-3a7c774a75b0      Now, Voyager

I love transformation movies: ugly ducklings turned beautiful, wallflowers who become the belle of the ball, villains turned saviors, shady ladies turned good girls, wild horses tamed.  If you can name one famous example of each from the movies, you win the prize, but for me the top entry in the first category would have to be Bette Davis in “Now Voyager.”

I’ve always been surprised that they haven’t done a remake of the film, but on the other hand, I don’t think they could probably equal the romantic pathos of the dowdy, overweight, aging and submissive spinster Bette Davis, living with her dominating mother, her one rebellion–cigarettes sneaked on the sly.  As her mother slips the noose of control ever tighter, Bette is “saved” by a nervous breakdown and a visiting psychiatrist who persuades her mother that she must be sent to a “rest farm” where the transformation takes place.

The resultant makeover, sea voyage, love affair and. . . but wait . . .  I’ll tell no more, for if you haven’t already seen the film, it is a must-see and I don’t want to issue further spoilers.  As a matter of fact, if you have seen it, we should both probably see it again.  The last time I saw it was in VHS form ordered from Amazon twelve years ago and yes, I still do have a VHS player hidden away somewhere in the highest reaches of my house.

At any rate, I have been diverted by the film review when my real intention was to talk about the title and plot itself and the significance it has in my own life; for I, too, seek a transformation.  Just once I would like to be that stunningly glamorous, thin mysterious stranger who turns all heads.  Yes, superficial, but I’ve always thought it would be fun to experience being that woman who could have any man in the place.

For too many years, books and movies seemed more real than the world around me.  My boring existence in a small town could not be all there was to life.  Surely, if it were, then all those exciting books and movies would never have been written, for where would they have come from except from the patterns of other places and other lives that contained more possibilities than a small dusty town in the middle of South Dakota prairie?

Yes, I did eventually voyage off into life and I found places more exciting–more in line with my own interests.  And although I had love affairs, married the man of my dreams, had careers I felt adequate at, traveled to exotic climes and never had trouble making friends, at age 67, I have still never been the femme fatale of my childish and teenage and middle-age dreams. I have made starts and even accomplished some of the goals.  I’ve lost weight, found the perfect haircut, bought more stylish clothes.  I’ve gone to clubs and danced unabashedly, joined internet introduction clubs, gone to singles parties. But still, at my best, there is some quality lacking in my makeup–some ineffable clue that I am available, sensual, smart and fun to be with.  What is it?  My entire life I have wondered why, with a few notable exceptions, I will invariably be the last woman at the table asked to dance. For years I believed it was because of my weight and at present that may be so, but even at my skinniest, there was some signal I sent out that made me unapproachable or unappealing or uncharismatic to most men, and as old and wise and introspective and analytical as I have become in my middle-to-old age, I do not know what it is.

Have you ever known someone who is doing something wrong and who just can’t get it right?  Everyone knows what it is but no one tells them, for fear of hurting their feelings.  And so they go on in life, never quite getting what they want and not having a clue why that is.  Why don’t we just tell each other?  It would be so much simpler.  But, the truth is that we probably would not listen even if our friends told us.  We would find excuses. We would not believe them, no matter how many people told us the same thing, because there seems to be some radar causing us to become who we are–strengths, talents and faults all combined.

A complete stranger sitting next to me at a banquet once said to me, “You don’t need that!” when I reached for the dessert held out to me by the waiter.  I was astonished, insulted, irate.  I wanted to take two desserts and put the bastard in his place! But the truth was, maybe he was that one person in my life who decided to tell me the truth.

Today when I got up to let the dogs out and give them their morning meal, I saw the dusty blistered card of diet pills on the kitchen island.  I broke one off and swallowed it with a long drink of water.  Perhaps I’ll start again that journey towards sylphdom.  I’ll lose dress sizes, get a facelift to deal with the resultant sags and wrinkles, fit into sexier clothes, go back on OkCupid, meet another stranger grown familiar through words over the internet.  Maybe it’s still not too late to be an object of desire. Or, perhaps I’ll just write about it.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/642826/Now-Voyager-Movie-Clip-I-Met-A-Doctor-In-Rio.html

The Prompt:Silver Screen–Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write!  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/silver-screen/

Strangely enough, this post also ended up answering today’s prompt so I’m posting it there as well: But No Cigar–Tell us about a time things came this close to working out… but didn’t. What happened next? Would you like the chance to try again, or are you happy with how things eventually worked out? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/but-no-cigar/

Under the Skin

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The Prompt: New Skin—If you could spend the next year as someone radically different from the current “you” — a member of a different species, someone from a different gender or generation, etc. — who would you choose to be?

Photo on 7-3-14 at 11.35 PM #2 - Version 3

Under the Skin

Like the ugly oyster creates the lovely pearl,
I’ve made starts at being a better sort of girl.
I’ve starved and exercised until I made a brand new me,
hoping that a siren was what I would set free.
But no matter what I look like, whatever I could be,
At the end of all of it, I find I’m only me.

Midnight Light

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Midnight Light

I wear darkness like a second skin.
It is the cloak that hides my midnight sin
as I make my way, barefooted, through my house.
Silent, lest I wake my dogs or spouse.

This way I know most well and so I bridge
in seconds that long gap between my bed and fridge.
Pull open that snug door and hear the plop
first of the rubber gasket, then the top

of the carton that has been my goal.
Spoon out its richness without benefit of bowl.
This darkness both of me and of the night
something the fridge dispenses with its light

as tears of joy and guilt and pleasure stream
down cheeks distended with this chocolate dream.
For minutes, I stand caught up in the hold
of this trio of pleasures: chocolate, creaminess and cold.

Until some motion jolts me from their grip.
I feel its pressure at my shoulder and my hip.
My spouse rolls over, shattering my dream
of midnight tryst with frozen cream.

Its chocolate savor is one that I try to keep
as I roll over once again to seek my sleep.
Whatever course my next dream serves, I’ll try it.
For I’ve already been one long day on this diet!

The Prompt: Trio No. 3—Today you can write about anything, in whatever genre or form, but your post must mention a dark night, your fridge, and tears (of joy or sadness; your call).