Personal Trainer Breaks the News on Biscuit Habits
The brief:
• Client returns to work after nine month’s maternity leave.
• All sweet temptation had been removed from her home pantry.
• Workplace tea room has forbidden apricot and yoghurt covered biscuits right beside the water filter.
• Client habitually fills up water bottle every morning and afternoon tea.
It’s a weigh-in day. I stand there scratching my head, “Run me through the exercise you did last week again”. She recites the usual. Still a bit puzzled, “Your food, it’s still ‘clean’, yeah?”
She nods,“Yes I’ve been pretty good.” Still baffled I ask, “So no cake, sweet treats, wine?”
Her brain starts ticking over, “No………..oooooooooooh, I have been having an apricot and yoghurt covered biscuit at every tea time morning and afternoon. I just give her one of my looks. “The biscuits are tiny. Yoghurt is healthy,” she says smiling! “Oh then there’s the wee chocolate fish. It’s only two a day. You see when Grant makes my coffee he always puts a chocolate fish on the side,” (the perk of having an ex- barista in your workplace).
This little cookie monster had slipped into unconscious mode, not even aware of her good old morning and afternoon tea habits, even after being away from her work environment for nine months.
Now for the part where the personal trainer breaks the bad news…….
“You’re an accountant, right?” She wearily answers, “Yes,” with the look on her face where the heck is this going? “Ok, let’s crunch some numbers then. One biscuit is 148 calories, so lets make this easy we’ll round it up to 150 calories. Times two for the day, equals 300 calories. Two biscuits a day multiplied by five working days equals 1500 calories. Multiplied by say fifty weeks of the year, equals 75,000 calories. In theory there’s about 7500 calories to a kilo. The disbelief, “Oh that comes to ten kilos.They’re only tiny!” Out comes the phone from my pocket, my maths isn’t good I need a calculator. “Seeing you love numbers so much, 8 grams of fat per biscuit, multiplied by five hundred biscuits per year equals 4000 grams of fat. A block of butter is 500grams…eight blocks of butter. Realisation dawns. That’s going to look great on your butt isn’t it! 13 grams of pure sugar per biscuit, two biscuits a day, that’s only 26 grams of sugar. Now there’s 4.2 grams sugar per teaspoon, You may as well swallow six straight teaspoons sugar a day. 13 grams multiplied by 500 biscuits per year equals 6500 grams, 6.5 kilos… six and a half bags of sugar, they’re only tiny!” She stood there looking horrified and said, “I have this awful image of all those biscuits and fish piled up on my desk!” “Do you even want me to go there with the teeny tiny chocolate fish? 87 calories, 870 calories per week!”
The next day I received the following text message, “Dear little yoghurt covered biscuits, you may have noticed me ignoring you today and yes it was deliberate. I regret to inform you we can longer be friends, so please do not smile at me while I am filling up my water bottle. Yours sincerely.”
Old habits die hard!
© Belinda Edmondston 2013. All rights reserved. Cultivating Your Inner Pearl, Reinvention from the Inside Out, Body, Mind, Soul – ISBN 978-0-473-25241-0
