Before the New Year Diet Comes the New Year Binge

Every year after Christmas is over I make a New Year Resolution to go on a diet.

This is usually because I find it impossible to not eat all the goodies that are in the house over the holidays, goodies like cookies, chocolates, chips and nuts, mince pies and so on, and as a result I usually put on a few pounds.

I often joke to myself that I am on the "Seafood Diet" - I see food and I eat it!

It's sad though, but it's so true unfortunately. While all those good things to eat are still in the house, there is no way that I can even think to begin a diet, and so I make a mental plan of how to dispose of those chocolates, chips and cookies as quickly as I can - without my wife getting too angry with me of course.

I suppose it's my Mother's fault in a way, since she came from a poor family that had to go through the depression years, and they learned to not waste anything or throw anything away.

I have always been like that, finding new and innovative ways to use up leftovers in the fridge, and to do my best to not waste anything. Most of the time it's successful, but occasionally the meals don't work out quite as well as I hoped. Still, the only waste that the food was going to was MY WAIST!

"Piggy-Wiggy" should have been my middle name, since once a packet of cookies or a box of chocolates is opened, I find it hard to stop eating them, busily stuffing them in one by one until they are all gone.

At that point I usually feel somewhat disappointed, not so much because I have finished them all, but because I didn't really want them in the first place. However as long as they remained in the house they kept calling to me, and so the only way to stop that is to take away the temptation, in other words to open mouth, insert goodies, and repeat as needed.

Each Christmas I secretly hope that we will get some good chocolates to eat, and yet at the same time I hope that we actually get none at all, since if the temptation is not there, I don't feel the need to rush out and buy anything bad to eat.

The first week of January therefore is a troubled one for me, when I am torn between starting my New Year diet, while finishing off the last of the ice cream, mince pies, cheese and crackers that need to be used up, and also emptying the remaining packets of cookies and boxes of chocolates.

Once gone, and with the house cleared of unnecessary temptations, I can then repent and begin the serious task of dieting, which not only means losing the weight that I put on over the holidays, but also losing the additional weight that I incurred as a result of binge eating to eliminate the unhealthy items around me.

I suspect that I am far from being alone in this however, and that there are thousands of people around the world who are in a similar position to me, finding it impossible to diet while temptation is all around them.

For all of you with the same problem that I have, being surrounded with devil's food cake, wickedly good chocolates and devilishly good cookies, just do as I do, say a little prayer, take a big slice, open wide, insert into mouth, and think to yourself "get thee inside me Satan".