Bite into This

I want to share a couple of new (to me) discoveries about eating and dieting, in case they might be helpful to someone else.

One is that no amount of watching Dr. Oz and writing down the names of teas and supplements will take the pounds off. You can watch his endless line of chefs and experts prepare dish after "shave 200 calories off" dish, but if you don't stop to think about what you're eating, those 200 calories won't matter one way or the other.

Until you know why you're sabotaging your health, you can't stop overeating for longer than a few days at a time. Sorry, I can't tell you how to figure out what it is you're hiding from yourself. But I'm sure there are books about it, and therapy for the rich or well-insured. I just know that it's the key because discovering my own reason has allowed me to think before grabbing for a snack. As opposed to inhaling half a bag of chips before noticing I was eating.

A more practical discovery is how to give in to a craving without ruining your calorie count for the day. Even if you've figured out why you overeat and can stop and think before each meal, hormones are hormones and sometimes the body screams, "Give me carbs!" in a way that's difficult to ignore. And by "carbs," the body on a hormone spike never means broccoli or a banana.

This won't work if you have brownie mix in the cupboard. But, if you have pancake mix on hand, we're cookin'! I'm assuming that if you're trying to lose weight that you don't bring easy, simple carbs into your house. No cookies, Hostess pies, or donuts. You should at least have to bake the indulgence first, to slow you down and make you think about what you're about to do.

Okay, everyone who knows me knows I'm a chocoholic. Especially dark chocolate truffles, in case anyone is making notes for future reference. Anyway, I pretty much believe that chocolate improves everything. I even put chocolate chips in my brownies, just because. So, chocolate pancakes should be a treat that completely derails your diet and convinces you that a gallon of ice cream for dinner is a good idea. As if anyone actually sells a gallon anymore. They list it in liters so you won't notice it's smaller but the same price.

Let's say you'd normally want to eat four, or maybe eight, pancakes. Depending on the brand you could be looking at anywhere from 400 - 800 calories up to 800 - 1600 or more. And that's before adding the butter and syrup. Don't look at the side of the container and think those numbers have anything to do with you. You're not going to use one tablespoon of syrup or two pats of butter. You're going to add another 1,000 calories easily because of the way that syrup seems to disappear into the pancakes as if you didn't pour any at all, forcing you to pour more. Realistically, you're looking at more calories in this snack than you're supposed to eat all day -- on a maintenance diet, not a weight loss diet.

But the chips will save you. They save me, so I'm confident about this.

Heat the griddle, mix the batter, then throw in some chocolate chips. If you're making 4 - 8 pancakes, one hefty handful should be enough. Mix well. Scoop and pour, flip after a minute and a half, and pile on your plate when done. Dress 'em up with the butter and pour that syrup. By now you've had enough time to think about all the calories (do you even want to know the total after adding the chips?) you're about to consume, how sickly full you're going to feel in a few minutes, how this will lead to even more overeating once you've burped a few times, and how you wouldn't be giving in to this at all if you weren't such a weak person and a disappointment to all who've ever met you. Of course, you still intend to eat them. It's natural.

Here's where the magic happens. You cut into the sweet, golden exterior with the side of your fork, preparing to capture and swirl that big bite in the syrup that hasn't disappeared yet and slide it into your mouth, the perfect combination of creamy fats and carbs settling on your taste buds for a moment before you chew it too fast and gobble up the rest. Except, well, you see the chocolate.

You think melted chocolate is a good thing, I know you do. You're picturing it on a strawberry at this very moment, aren't you? Or covering a cake ball. This is not that. Your brain will see little puddles of brown oozing out of your pancakes and know what they are, but suggest something else before you can put your hands over your ears and sing La la la la la. Being a grown person (notice how I didn't say "big girl?" -- not that men can't benefit from this, too), you will take the bite anyway. And you will find that chocolate doesn't complement pancakes the way it does just about everything else. Even if you close your eyes, it really doesn't.

But your eyes are open, and you will only get another bite or two down before you can't bear that brown ooze swiped across your plate, looking like nothing that ever came into contact with a strawberry, at least in a pretty, plated and ready-to-eat sort of way.

If your craving is very strong, or your frugal nature kicks in and starts adding up the cost of the pancake mix, butter and syrup (it will ignore the cost of the chips -- the chips are worthless at this point), you might try to cut pieces that don't contain chocolate, to eat some regular, old pancakes, the kind you now lament not making to begin with. It won't last past a few bites. The chocolate is everywhere. Melting. Oozing. Trails of it across the plate, remember? You will stop eating.

Throwing the disgusting mess into the trash will not feel like a waste of time and money. It will be both a relief and a victory. At most you consumed 100 -- 200 calories. Sure, it could've been a protein snack and therefore Dr. Oz approved. But your day is not ruined, as far as staying under the magic number of 1200 is concerned. It's pretty much ruined as far as thinking about those chocolate trails and being grossed out is concerned. But that's okay! You beat the craving, and the hormones didn't win! Yay, right?

Now brew some Pru-erh tea, which Dr. Oz says shrinks fat tissue, and pop a konjac root pill (but remember to drink a ton of water with it, since it's going to blow up inside your stomach to make you feel full and the water is part of that), if you think it'll help, and get on with your day.

You're welcome. Anytime I can help, I'm here.