The Donut Diet - Don't Give Up Hope

           My Facebook friends may recall several months ago when I talked about venturing forth into unknown nutritional territory and began what I’m going to go ahead and term “The Donut Diet.” It sounds delightful doesn’t it? You may be wondering what it entails. It’s very simple. All it requires is to eat a donut every day, along with everything else you would normally eat. It was an experiment. I wanted to find out if I could lose weight by substituting my daily chocolate chip muffin with a chocolate frosted donut from Dunkin’ Donuts. I thought it was quite generous of me to take one for the team and set out on this mission of daily donut consumption. I am sorry to report, it’s not really working.

            Before you give up all hope that this could be a legitimate thing, I want to disclose that I was unable to run an entirely controlled experiment. There are other things that could have resulted in my lack of weight-loss. First of all, the walk to Dunkin’ Donuts is only 5 minutes, whereas the walk to get a chocolate chip muffin was a solid mile. So, eating the donut cut two miles of walking out of my daily routine (it’s been cold and rainy though – who wants to walk two miles in the cold rain? I don’t). Additionally the change in weather has caused in a decrease in my exercise. I can’t do yoga outside – it’s too cold. The Monday afternoon yoga class at the gym got cancelled, which meant no class, no walk to the gym, and no 45 minutes of cardio before class. The Monday evening class I would have gone to also got cancelled. And I’ve decided that rather than doing an hour of cardio after I lift weights on Wednesday mornings, I would rather lay on the floor and stretch/sleep with my eyes open while my friend Beth runs 5 miles on a treadmill. OH and when I go to Dunkin’ Donuts I have to get an iced coffee. Despite being a black coffee drinker, I can’t drink Dunkin’s iced coffee without milk and sugar. There are some more calories. All of those things could be contributing to the fact that I can’t get my pants zipped up.

            The dryer! That evil monster that conspires against junk-trunked women everywhere. Perhaps he’s been up to something. Come to think of it, it is most likely those other things and not the donuts. A regular chocolate frosted donut only has 270 calories in it! That’s less than a large Coke from McDonalds. It’s WAY less than a chocolate chip cookie from Panera (440 calories!). The reason I bring this up, is that I bet most of the homemade confections you will encounter at holiday parties and at your mom’s house are all less calories than the crap we buy out (except the chocolate frosted donut – the unsung hero of diet foods). People may try to watch their waistline this season. I say, eat it all! Screw dieting! Unless you’re already pushing 300 pounds (it may be time to take a look at yourself in the mirror and have a conversation about how much you’re ingesting), enjoy the food! Go for walks, go to the gym, take the dog out, and don’t be a bump on a log.

            I’m not interested in being super thin. I may have been once, but enough is enough. I associate those times with times of extreme lack of mental wellbeing. There’s a reason there are multiple layers of muscle and flesh that cover our bones. It’s because you’re not supposed to be able to see them. Anorexics and bulimics don’t have much fun. They either don’t experience the food or they experience it twice in a less pleasant way. There’s something wrong when society starts to praise a lack of health. While I was in the fitting room the other day trying on some (ahem, larger – to accommodate too many squats and lunges NOT DONUTS) jeans, I overheard a sales woman saying “Oh it just hangs so nicely on you because you’re SO thin,” to a middle aged woman. What she should have said was, “It hangs well on you because you basically resemble a wire hanger.” My cat could have broken her in half. Yuck. Food is part of life. Part of loving life is loving food. Enjoy the holidays. Taste the season. Be merry, drink lots (Thin out that blood! It’s good for your heart!), and EAT!