Do we really know?

I think I finally figured out the reason for my plateau; it's basically thinking you understand something when you really don't.

Tea, cake and my grandmother!

My other secret attraction comes in the form of sweets such as ‘sweet breads’, cakes, doughnuts (as opposed to Ice Cream).

Self examination is once more in order. Besides the usual, ‘I’m mad so I’m going to have some sweets’ trigger, what else is going on?

Well let’s see, just like the ice cream story confessions, there is something similar here. When I was a little boy (I know, here we go again), my grandmother would call me in the afternoon; I would go to her room (she lived with us), and she would have a cup of tea and some assorted sweet bread to go along with the tea. I remember this like it was yesterday. It was the special treat for the little prince of the house (yeah, I was spoiled rotten, and that is another story which I’ll put in writing as well). This was done every afternoon around our school break on weekdays.

Tea was prepared, sweet bread warmed up or just right out of the oven. My dad was a baker and we had this rather large brick oven. So talk about organic, everything from the bread to the ‘little drunkards’ (small muffins with Rum), tasted absolutely great! In any case, there it was just for me and I sat there and enjoyed the treat for as many years as I can remember (until I was almost twelve).

Having tea with something sweet does take me back forty years back. To a place where I was soon to be crowned (that’s what I thought in any case). The problem is that the sweet tooth took me to the brink of good old diabetes. This was in my late mid forties at that. My cravings for this stuff are much more controlled now but once in a while, the devil in disguise turns up.

I’ve made a pact and my goal is this: I enjoy sweets appropriately and as long as I don’t have them every day I’m great. Home made is best so I avoid the market variety. I leave it for the weekends but not excessively so I’ll not feel guilty. I use a small spoon or fork and have my tea with ‘Flan’ or whatever my honey bakes once in a while.

The fight goes on! Onward!

My food log and the iPhone!

By far what I'm describing here is not a novel idea. I was actually doing a similar thing using my old PDA; but for some reason it was not as fun.

Tracking your food intake fun? Well, sort of. The fun lies in taking control of your daily eating habits and having some semblance of what is actually happening throughout the day. Lots of folks do well without it; I prefer this new method for now.


Must of us carry our phone with us all the time; I use my iPhone as my alarm clock, as a calendar, note taker, task organizer, news reader, mail reader, online banking, camera, ebook reader, timer for my workouts, music listening and more.


Phone calls are a third or fourth distant cousin.


I found this neat little app called 'Loose It!'; which I promptly installed on the iPhone. It has been a pleasure to use it, keeping track of my food intake and getting ever closer to my goal of becoming leaner.


Included is an image of what is called a 'cheat meal'. Something I don't normally have but will not do without so I don't go crazy.

The Loose It! app has a very comprehensive database, you can add your own foods and exercises as well.


All I have to do now is make sure I don't dunk the iPhone in the soup.