Everyday Systems

Already thinking longingly of upcoming S-days, I spent a couple of hours (talk about the need for Weekend Ludditing!) on the epicurious.com site, looking for something to bake for the weekend.

Came upon what looks like the perfect cake, BUT I am afraid that if there is any left (as is likely. Maybe.), I'll have it in the house come NoS days, and I'm afraid to have it on hand.

Do most of you find it difficult to have sweets and snacks in the house on NoS days, or do your three plates of food eliminate cravings and obsessing?

Would I be wiser not to have such temptations around for five days when I'm not supposed to touch them?

Judith

Judith

I have found the the promise of being able to have whatever I want on S Days has stopped the snacks and sweets I have in the house for DH and DS x2 from being an issue.

I find it depends entirely on you! I currently have several really yummy things in the house (one and a half bars of green & blacks chocolate for a start - I can't find it over here in Amsterdam so I shipped some back with me from the UK last time) and am not usually tempted to eat them during the week. On the other hand, some other people here report that they have to purge the house of these things if they're going to be successful Nossers all week.

Like Merrykat, I generally find that the delaying tactic promise of 'I can eat that and enjoy it on Saturday if I still want to' works pretty well at keeping the foodmonster under control... most of the time. Of course, there are slip-ups, and maybe there'd be fewer of them if there were fewer things around, but I'm only human and I can't live in a hermetically sealed vault away from all temptation for 5 days of every week, so it's a compromise I'm happy with. As I've posted before somewhere too, perhaps I'm a little odd, but I actually derive some strange kind of satisfaction from putting myself in harm's way but still resisting!! If there are cakes at work in the office, I will deliberately go up to them and smell them. It somehow neutralises their hold over me somehow. Like saying "yes, there are cakes. I know there are cakes, and they're free. I cannot eat the cakes today though, but that's OK, cos if I really want cake, it'll taste much better on Saturday and then I can choose exactly which type of cake I want". Of course, the whole choosing exactly which type of cake you want thing is also a kind of gluttony in itself. Like saying "but I only want a piece of toast! Just the toast, but it's got to be really hot and have lots of butter on it... No, salted butter! Not brown bread! It's got to be white... Nonono! That piece is too thin!! Cut it thicker and start again".

Hopefully I haven't lost you at all with all of this. I think I wandered a bit off topic and got carried away. Sorry!

Good luck and have fun finding out what works for you.
C.

If you want to bake the cake, why not bake it smaller? Cut the recipe in half, use liquid egg mix (either measure fresh eggs --1 egg = 1/4 cup, or use the kind you buy in the carton) and use a smaller pan (go to Walmart or wherever and buy a pan for the top layer of a wedding cake. Should be in the crafts section of the store). If it's smaller, you can have two days' worth and nothing left on Monday.

Or...make the full recipe, but cut into s-day-size pieces and save out what you want for this weekend, then wrap the rest for next weekend and freeze.

Judith,

If you think it's going to be a problem, don't take the unnecessary risk of having cake in the fridge Monday.

Many of us here can deal with that kind of temptation without a problem, but we're advanced in habit.

I'd say either

1) wait a week or two or three until your habits are stronger before undertaking such a risky enterprise

2) make the cake small enough so that there's nothing left Monday (danger here is that you'll eat like a fiend to ensure there's nothing left)

3) just give away any leftovers.

Reinhard

Or freeze it for the next weekend. It's easy to resist food that you'd have to defrost...

I love to bake also. The first few weekends I ate to much on Sunday night and couldn't sleep because it made me sick. Thats when the light bulb goes off that you can have one portion and really enjoy it instead of having two portions and losing sleep.

I still bake but I either give half away to my boys, bring it into work or freeze it for the following weekend. Right now I have four portions of apple crisp tucked away in the freezer.

This, I feel is part of the learning curve - yes you can eat an entire cake every weekend but you won't feel so good afterwards.

I couldn't stand it if something was on my counter going bad during the week but frozen to be eaten later I have no problem with it in there. You won't have the mentality that you can never have it again so you shouldn't feel like you have to eat it all.

The only thing Reinhard's written that hasn't worked for me is the idea of putting any amount of thought into "choosing something really special" for S Days. That stirs up a lot of "special enough?" " really good, but not quite right" "it's Sunday night and nothing's really done it for me" kind of thinking in me. (Very like Carolejo's buttered toast example).

Eating just what's in the house, the things I've been tempted by all week, your ordinary tapioca pudding and Twinkies, or a Pillsbury cinnamon roll for breakfast, that stuff seems to work without a lot of unwanted dwelling on food. (I have kids in the house, is why that stuff's there).

Really laughed when I read you "spent 2 hours on Epicurious" !!!

The gluttony of delicacy, rather than the gluttony of excess...

At least the the former won't tend to pile on the pounds, but as far as 'biblical sins' go, is it really any better?

*grin*
C.

My biggest problem with having things in the apartment that I can only eat on S-days is that I feel bad watching food spoil. Sure, the freezer works for some things, but then I'm usually far to lazy to actually defrost them on S-days, and they just sit in the freezer til I eventually throw them away. My fiance and I have both been working on buying less food so we have less snacks around, less sweets around (a problem for her, but not me, as I have never been particularly fond of sweets), and less opportunity to watch our precious food spoil. We try our best to only keep on hand what we will eat during our 3 meals/day during the week and then tend to do things like eat out or order delivery for the fun foods that we want to indulge in on S-days.

If she does start baking cookies or cakes or what not I try to make sure that our friends take the remaining leftovers before the weekend is over so as not to create any potential traps for the following week. Since my fiance is not truly on the No-S diet and is more following my eating patterns for convenience and to make it easier for me, I sometimes leave some of the sweets leftovers at home knowing she'll take care of them during the week (but I still try to keep them out of plain view because this can lead to dangerous unconscious snacking!).

Long story short: Make necessary preparations during the S-days to avoid any hazards or pitfalls the following week. You'll find that you are able to think more rationally about either freezing, disposing of, or giving away anything you should not be eating during the week on the days when you are allowed to be eating them.

I will not be baking or keeping sweets in the house. Who am I trying to kid?

Judith

Judith... You can bake some great sweets but make sure you promise to give away half of them to your favorite neighbors, or family....

The "freeze the rest" plan, never works for me....
I remember, as a kid, disregarding the instructions to "let thaw for a half an hour before serving" and eating frozen Sara Lee poundcake while standing in front of the freezer...
(As if *not sitting down* somehow made it less caloric!!!! Cheating girl!!!)
LOL...
My mom, always chided me because it was supposed to be for "When she had guests"....
It tasted good frozen! LOL..

Have a nice evening
Peace and Love,
Deb

Exactly, Deb. Frozen food never stopped me before. Besides, with microwaves, how long does it take to go from frozen to melt-in-your-mouth?

As for giving it to neighbours, I have been known to do this, then go back later and ask for it back. Really. I have no pride or shame when it comes to food.

Judith

Well if you give it to me, don't expect me to give nuthin back!
Not even a crumb!
LOL...
Have a nice evening in beautiful BC!!!
Love,
Deb

You'd have to be very fast, Deb, and able to put away a lot. What happens is I "go on a diet" and want to get all non-allowable food out of the house, so I get rid of EVERYTHING that contains ________________ (carbs, fats, animal protein, dairy, salt, refined products, etc. - fill in the blank for the diet-of-the-day.)

Since I keep the house stocked, there are usually several cartons to give away. Mostly I give it to the food bank; sometimes I put it out on the street, from where it immediately disappears. Finally my neighbour told me that she always takes them, and to just give them to her directly. So last time I did, with predictable results.

Judith

There's a cookbook that I saw at Border's a couple of weeks ago -- wish I could remember the name of it! -- and it was for baking little tiny things from scratch. How to bake two cupcakes, etc. Perfect sizes for s-days. I'll bet you could find it at any big bookstore.