I like precision. For years, little inconsistencies bothered me. I liked my cut lines on the lawn to be parallel. A picture that wasn’t quite perfectly horizontal demanded attention. A spot on the floor, flagged by the otherwise perfect surface sheen, was an irritant. There were jobs I did along the way where that kind of obsession about detail probably had some value. In real life, perhaps not so much. With dieting, probably not at all.

One little failure on a diet doesn’t mean it’s all shot. But I often behaved as if it did. Or was that just an excuse to start over again next Monday? Though I mellowed with age, I find myself still drawn to clean lines. Sometimes I pretend I’m an artist so I can take a totally contrarian approach. But the real me still comes out. Somewhere in the mess, there will be a pinprick of precision that is invisible to most. But to me, it’s the meaning of the whole thing. It proves there is order amongst the chaos. That there is beauty in the ripples that disturb the pond.

Very esoteric, eh! But what on earth does it have to do with diet?

I don’t possess the degree of control that would allow me to restrict my food intake, day in & day out, for the rest of my life. I have diligently tried to stick to so many dietary regimens, most of which resulted, ultimately, in failure. However, I learned something from all these failures. Dieting is really more like art. You need to carefully pick the tiny points of precision. The rules that really make a difference. And then let the rest dissolve into something that isn’t quite total chaos.

My perfect diet will allow me to eat french fries & ice cream. And no, I don’t want to control my portion size! While there will be rules, they will only be the foundation for the chaos. Small, almost invisible, anchors that will allow me to splash paint all over the rest of the canvas.

After two large dinner servings last evening, I had a home made cherry & chocolate chip ice cream. A quick calculation tells me the dessert was just south of 2,000 calories. But who’s counting!

I wonder what the scale would have thought this morning? 🙂