Homemade wholewheat pizza dough. Is loving to bake a downfall?
The great thing about blowing it on a diet is that you can always work to balance it out the rest of the week, right? Burned 528 calories walking today. But still went a little over calorie count ‘cause I didn’t stand firm against half a rootbeer and an extra slice of pizza. I wonder if eating bad one day makes it harder to eat well the next? ~December 17, 2012
Real Time Update:
First off, I’ve sworn away from the word diet. It’s too negative. Diets are something we break or blow. You know, “I broke my diet.” Or something we do over and over throughout life, yo-yoing back and forth.
I want this to be a journey for health, a life-style change, not a diet. So I’m not using that word anymore.
But back to the whole pizza thing. I see a pattern. Soda and pizza on December 17th was a downfall for me. And it was last night. Even though I believe our homemade dough and fresh ingredients are healthier than a store-bought pizza, eating pizza is one place I have little self-control.
One answer would be to stop making homemade pizza. This makes me think a lot about my love for baking. My dear grandma showed her love through food. I grew up believing that loving people included baking for them. Most of my baking memories as a kid were with Grandma Eunice, and they are precious. She taught me to make a killer pie crust.
Fast forward. My husband loves homemade breads, cinnamon rolls, and homemade whole wheat pizza. Jerry and the boys give me a lot of affirmation with I bake. Baking connects me to warm memories of time with Grandma. To this day I love the feel of dough beneath my fingers, and working dough, whether a pie crust or bread, relaxes me.
I live near Boulder. Gluten-free is all the rage here. Many people believe wheat has been so genetically modified that it is no longer good for you, including some of my extended family. I’m sure the gluten-free, really healthy folks would tell me that true love is putting good food in front of my family, not just the foods they love.
Thus my conundrum.
I suppose where I’m landing today–and I won’t speak for tomorrow–is the balance thing again. Days for celebration include our favorite foods. I don’t regret Sunday’s snowday baking binge. We had some glorious family time. And while I’m not convinced all wheat is bad for us, I do think we eat too much of it. So I guess the answer is that we don’t eat like this as the norm. I need to add more vegetables to daily meals and back off the heavier foods.
This doesn’t solve my own weakness for pizza. I’m not ready to quit making it for my family, so I guess I either have to learn more self-control and have smaller portions, or I need to do more exercise on the days when I make it. Or maybe the time it takes to chew a salad along with only ONE piece of pizza would help me slow down and eat less while making sure I get the benefit of the nutrients and roughage the salad provides. Also, I rarely have a soda, but the one time I really want one, especially a specialty soda like I had last night, is with pizza. I think the answer there is to half it with someone.
That feels like the kind of thing I can live with my whole life. All or nothing will crash me, but I do want to be healthier and thinner and these kind of adjustments help me meet that goal without making me feel deprived.
What About You?
Do you think I’m crazy not to give up baking as I am on my weight loss journey? Do you share my aversion to the word diet?
Tagged: baking down fall, grandma, homemade bread, homemade dough, is baking loving?, love, love to bake, pizza downfall, self-control, weight loss
Paula's Blog 
I like to remind myself, “I am not dieting, because dieting is a temporary state. This is just the way I eat now. I am upgrading the quality of my food, permanently.”
Exactly, Melissa! I love that: upgrading the quality of my food permanently. Wow.
I think too many people think that healthy eating is about giving up stuff we love because if we love it it must be bad for us. Pizza, made with real food ingredients prepared the traditional way, can be extremely nourishing (yes healthy!). In my opinion, it’s not the dishes we eat, it’s the source of the ingredients and how they’re prepared. Today’s wheat is not genetically modified, it’s a hybrid and, yes, much of it is now too high in gluten, but that’s not the problem with wheat.The problem with wheat (flour) is the lack of traditional preparation which makes the nutrients available to the body and neutralizes the phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient and indigestible by the body. But back to your questions: I don’t think you’re crazy to keep baking on your weight loss journey because, as you said, “I want this to be a journey for health, a life-style change, not a diet.” If it’s a true “life-style change” then is giving up baking something you’re willing to give up for the rest of your life? I don’t think so – which leads me to my answer to your next question, “Do you share my aversion to the word diet?” I don’t share your aversion to the word diet in the way you describe as being part of a life-style change, because everything we eat is part of our “diet” and isn’t a temporary thing, but for many people the word “diet” means exactly what you are trying to get away from, “…a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight,” (Dictionary.com) which I’ve come to term “fad diet” to differentiate from what we do out of biological necessity. So, when I speak of “changing my diet” I mean that I’ve changed the way I eat for life, not a short-term change that will cause me to achieve a goal so I can eventually return to my previous state of being (good or bad). And all fad diets will have the person returning to the same (or, often times, worse) state of being that they were in before starting their “diet.”
Excellent thoughts, Wendi. Thank you so much! I really appreciate your perspective and the clarity it offers.
Thank you back and you’re so welcome! And I appreciate how clearly you express yourself. I admire you and hold you in very high esteem.
I grew up with the same thing. My mother expressed love through her baking and I think of those days when I bake. I have cut back on baking over the years but I’m not going to totally quit baking either. We shouldn’t make abstaining from food a god any more than we should make food itself a god. I think your answer to your baking conundrum is in your second paragraph, where you want a lifestyle change. Our choices are not just about food but about life. Thanks for your transparency.
Wow, thanks, Kathy. I really appreciate your ability to help me process and to speak truth!
It’s all about a healthy balance Paula and a home made pizza with good fresh ingredients is no bad thing, as long as there is some portion control involved. Depravations leads to binges in my experience and this has to be a journey for life 🙂
:O) Thank you, Marie! I did do better with the leftovers–a huge salad with a smaller piece of pizza.