Earning My Ice Cream

If you have read many of my posts you must wonder if we even own an ice cream scoop.  I am constantly talking about fruits and veggies.  I extoll the virtues of avoiding processed foods.  Fats and sugars?  Must stay away at all costs.  What could be worse for you than ice cream?  It is loaded with sugar and is full of fat.  I tell my patients that it is the diabetic double whammy.  My daughter, a competitive swimmer is achieving her best times ever this year.  I asked her what was going on, "did you give up ice cream?" It truly is not good for you.  All true, but...I love ice cream.  I admit it.  In fact, I must give ice cream credit for much of how I view health and nutrition.

If ever my family had any reason to celebrate, ice cream was involved.  Sporting events, good grades, giving a talk in church, all were a reason for ice cream.  Anyone ever eat the cylindrical scoops from Lucky's?  Keeping the triple decker upright was always tricky.  We could never get Mom and Dad to spring for the triple, though, that had to be from paper route money.  Ice cream never lasted more than a few days in our home.  With three boys and my father (the biggest sneak of us all), the carton never lasted long.  Now mind you, we would get in trouble if found skimming off the top.  We all thought we had mastered the art of taking a spoon and taking off only the top layer so as to avoid detection.  No obvious divots could be found.  Oh, how sneaky we were!  Sure.  I have no doubt that Mom knew exactly what we were doing.  Especially, since you could never really just take off the top layer.  Once started, the layers quickly started to add up.

As I grew older and started to buy my own food, I started talking myself into the Bill Cosby rationale of healthy eating.  Let's see, ice cream has milk.  We all need milk every day.  It has calcium.  It is good for our bones.  It must be something that I should have every night.  It would "settle my stomach."  And so for several years I ate ice cream pretty much every night.  I reasoned that it was better than being addicted to heroin.  As the waist began to expand, my energy level start to sag, I had to admit that perhaps the ice cream was not helping me out.  I decided to give it up.  That lasted until the next time it was offered to me.  Like a chain smoker I would quickly go back to a bowl every night.  As I kept trying to stop my habit but failing, I finally settled on a dietary plan that I could stick with and still have my ice cream.


I decided that instead of feeling guilty for eating ice cream, I would go back to my childhood and use it as a reward.  I decided that during the week I would eat healthy.  I would eat at least 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.  I would not eat candy, treats, dessert, soda or even my beloved....ice cream.  I decided that if I did this in conjunction with exercising at least four days during the week I could eat whatever I wanted on the week end.  In the beginning I craved the treats so badly I would get headaches, sweaty and a bit dizzy.  When the weekend would come I ate way too much.  By Sunday night I was bloated, had a headache and couldn't wait for Monday to begin so that I had a reason to regain my will power.  With time, I learned to control myself better.  I now may enjoy a bowl of ice cream (which I did while writing this post!) but since I behaved during the week, I can savor it.  I enjoy it.  I've earned it.