CIY!

The Weight Loss Word of the Day is CIY! Weil, it's really not a word, but it stands for Cook It Yourself. I see you nodding your head. You already know that home-cooked food tastes better and retains more natural goodness. You can also prepare it in a way that minimizes fat. However, did you know that CIY can help with binge eating?

Binge eating is almost unknown in the Third World. Scientists believe this is because they have to spend so much time preparing their food as well as working to afford it or gather it. It is completely unknown in primitive tribes except at occasional feasts.

But here in the US, we only have to walk into our kitchens and tear open a bag of chips and grab a box of Twinkies to settle ourselves in front of the TV for an evening of chowing down. We are not mindful of our food because we don't have to be.

Mindless binge eating used to be a real problem for me. My cabinets were full of quick, convenient food. If something triggered my appetite, it was all too easy to binge until you'd find me unconscious in the living room, greasy remote in one hand, hunk of cake in the other and a large bowl of lard-fried potato chips on my rounded belly. How's that for an image?

What did I do to change this? Well, I stopped buying that convenient food or bought only convenient food that was good for me. For instance, you can't beat the food preparation time of baby carrots. You open the bag, rinse them off and you're crunching happily almost immediately. And Weight Watchers Smart Ones microwave meals are quick and delicious (many of them, anyway). Next, I determined that my binge foods were usually sweets. So I decided that if I had to have them, I had to bake them or make them. Just that decision cut back on a lot of bingeing

I also decided that if I was going to binge, it was going to be on something I really loved. Such as chocolate-covered strawberries or other fruits. So I went out and found some chocolate formulated for microwave melting. (Wal-Mart has it.) And now when I just have to have some sweets, I get out a bowl, measure out the chocolate, microwave the chocolate, wash and cut up the fruit while the chocolate is microwaving, take out the chocolate and wait for it to cool slightly, use a fork and start dipping. The thing is, by the time the chocolate is ready and the fruit is cut, many times the impulse has passed, so I dip a few pieces and then put it all up.

So try CIY. It may help you to SDY! (Slim Down Yourself)