What Else Do You Want?
Photo by Sandra Wei on Unsplash
You want the treats, but WHAT ELSE do you want?
I spent decades baking lots of goodies at this time of the year. Gifts for colleagues, cookie boxes for friends, desserts for gatherings, and then professionally. And I loved it. I was good at it. And the food was always well received.
I also ate these products mindlessly. I used them to self medicate - they calmed me down, kept boredom at bay, and gave me something to look forward to.
Sweets taste good - who would not want them!? I wanted them, but over time, I also determined that I wanted more for myself.
I wanted to feel like I was in control of the sweets, not the other way around. I wanted to stop eating so much sugar and fat. I wanted to feel powerful around the choices I was making. I wanted to get out of a pattern that felt unhealthy - as if the sweets were tiny dictators, directing my choices.
Over time (before I made it a business) I began to ask myself, who was I really doing the baking for? This question was a huge epiphany and a turning point for me. I was doing the baking mainly for me. Prior to this I told myself I was doing it for my kids - who could mostly take it or leave it, or my husband - who could have two cookies and be done, or for my friends and colleagues - who would have been fine with other types of gifts.
I look back in sympathy, not judgement, at my younger self who did what she did because it worked at the time. Baking, and eating what I baked helped me to take care of myself in a “protect my sanity” sort of way during my years of being a stay at home mother - a role that was hard for me.
I have written other pieces (Rediscovering Fun, Sugar, Sugar) in this space about the outsized and mostly positive role baking has played in my life, and about my struggles with sugar. I have also written that I do not bake as much as I used to. Not having it solves part of the problem. But more than that, it is that my thoughts have shifted. The “cost” of eating too much of this stuff is too high. It hacks away at my sense of power, of self control, and of the goals I have for myself.
If you find yourself staring down a plate of Christmas cookies, ask yourself WHAT ELSE do you want, besides the cookies? Eating too much in the moment leaves us in a place where we forget WHAT MORE we want for ourselves. Maybe fewer treats in December leads to starting 2021 feeling powerful instead of guilty.
