Captain Kirk's forest
A diet analogy to
help you put "diet" time in perspective by Johnny T. Flynn
A simple diet analogy that helps to put time
in perspective while on a diet involves the structure of
trees.
I see the
branches as days, the trees as months, and the forest as
enough trees to reach your goal. I used to get stuck in the
branches—the days—often. I’d be in a 7-Eleven store
thinking, “It’s okay to have a candy bar once in a while. No
one said I have to give up chocolate completely. I’ll eat
one bar today, and then I won’t have another one for two
weeks.” But as soon as I finished it off and could no longer
taste it in my mouth, my memory of the candy bar would
vanish. The very next day, I’d go through the same ritual in
the same 7-Eleven store. I might talk myself into buying
some chocolate, or I might be strong and say no. The point
is that I was managing my sweet tooth using a
crisis-to-crisis approach rather than having a plan. And the
results were discouraging.
If I stand back a bit and view the entire
forest, I can see the overall diet plan: Here are the
allowed foods, here are the disallowed foods, here is the
last day you had your once-a-week piece of chocolate, here
is your current weight, here is your next mini-goal. It’s
like being on the Starship Enterprise’s bridge, in the
captain’s chair. All the information you need to know
surrounds you, and it’s all about you.
Don’t make your most important diet decisions
at the branch level; make them at the forest level.
Everything can be seen so much more clearly and from a wider
perspective. Open up your scope to see the larger picture.
Now let’s pretend we’re out for a ride, and we’re wondering
if we should have that candy bar. Rather than trying to
rationalize a way to buy and eat the candy bar, because we
want it so bad, let’s instead put ourselves in the captain’s
chair. What would we want to know?
Kirk: Spock, get me a fix on the last time we
had a candy bar.
Kirk: Uhura, map a tentative course to the
nearest 7-Eleven store.
Spock: Captain, we ingested a Twix bar exactly
10 days ago. I believe we washed it down with a primitive
form of no-calorie cola extract.
Kirk: Chekov, what is our directive regarding
candy bars?
Chekov:
Captain, we may have one candy bar every 2 weeks. Any more
than that and we will slow ourselves down.
Uhura:
Nearest 7-Eleven store located. It is in the KitKat
quadrant, Sir, 1.6 light years away.
Sulu:
Captain, shall I map a course to the KitKat quadrant?
Kirk: Wait, something’s not right. We need to
wait two weeks for another candy bar, and it’s only been 10
days. Sulu, steady as she goes. We can’t go to 7-Eleven
today!
Scotty: Captain, it’s the engines. They need
more power. Please, we must have a candy bar.
Kirk: Scotty, get a grip. You are confusing
want with need. You’re delirious man. I’m the captain of
this ship, and we will follow our directive.
Later that night:
Captain’s log, StarDate
3141.9.
I don’t know about this crew.
We definitely must deal with Scotty before his emotions get
the best of him. I’ll have someone search his quarters and
see if he’s hiding a private stash of goodies. I just may
have to confine him to his quarters for Halloween again.
Then there’s Uhura. She
started drooling just as I said 7-Eleven. I bet she knows
where all the 7-Elevens are in the universe. Thank heavens
that she can’t fly this ship.
Spock, Sulu, and Chekov, I
can trust. Too bad they all have a tribble’s personality.
But at least they are positive influences in trying to make
this ship mean and lean.
Even though you may be sitting in
the captain’s chair, other obstacles might steer you away
from your mission directives. Your job, shall you choose to
accept it, is to stay on course and stay focused. Don’t be
a Scotty!
Johnny T. Flynn is the
author of the book Heavy Lettuce – Adventures of a
journeyman dieter. Heavy Lettuce will help you to
improve your dieting performance while entertaining you with
humor and real life stories. Read more of Johnny’s humor
and dieting experiences at his website
www.heavylettuce.com or
Purchase Heavy Lettuce from Amazon now
© By Johnny T. Flynn for
weightloss-articles.com
