Lose Weight--Eat Dessert

Image by escuelahosteleriabenahavis via Flickr     I set out on my annual pilgrimage with my daughter. Over Veterans day we hunker down in Burlington, Vermont, scrapbook and eat at the Olive Garden. Ah, the Olive Garden--home of the Tour of Italy and breadsticks and Tiramisu. Except the food police hit. Now in Vermont, restaurants carry three--make that four--little digits at the bottom of each selection. Calories!
    
     1450 was the huge digit at the bottom of the Tour. That was one thousand four hundred and fifty calories. As my daily budget is 1290 calories (which I thought was what the poor, starving people in Africa ate per day), this meal, minus breadsticks (150 per stick) and Tiramisu (510) would have me porking on the pounds.
     
     To work off the calories from the Tour alone, I'd have to run MORE than a half-marathon (that's 13.2 miles) or ride my bike for eight hours or walk for ten. That's HOURS! And I still hadn't extras to eat.

     So instead of taking the Tour, I opted for strawberry mousse with white chocolate cream cake--210 calories complete.

     Life should be sweet!

The Pumpkin Muffin Diet

Image by kmevans via Flickr            I discovered this fantastic diet quite by accident. Once more relying on my Garmin while visiting Paul’s Paradise near Albany, I got lost. A twenty minute drive took an hour and the grocery store I searched for had been washed away by Hurricane Irene. I ended up twenty minutes later in Cobleskill. My hunger threatened to kill me until I made an emergency stop at a Dunkin Donuts.

            I got a latte. Staring at me from the shelves of delicacies, white sugar glaze topped a burnt-orange offering and said, “You’re hungry, Carol, and look at me.”

(You should have heard the voice—you would have succumbed as well.)

            I bought it, and the pumpkin flavor of the moist cake exploded in my mouth. Each crumb satisfied in a way that a celery stalk could never. I nibbled. I licked my fingers and sucked every crumb from my finger and the napkin strewn across my lap as the lady inside my Garmin directed me home.

            Before I even finished my latte, my appetite vanished as though I left it in Cobleskill. No need to devour the half of sub sitting in the fridge once I got home. I didn’t even desire apples or cheese or veggies. My belly swelled in delight in a manner that no salad slathered with non-fat dressing on the side could do. One little muffin satisfied.

            So my advice to you—stock up at Dunkin Donuts (these muffins are seasonal after all), and eat one muffin for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. You’ll be satisfied until your stash vanishes.

            Share your diet results here. I’d love to learn new techniques.