At first, I was good. I was very good. I picked my croutons off my salad before I ate it. I asked the waiters not to bring bread to the table. I drank water with a touch of lemon.

Everyone said, “You can’t go on a diet, you have to change your lifestyle.” Well, I did.

And then I changed back.

It’s not that I don’t like salads with or without croutons, it’s just that I like chocolate more. So I gave myself permission to eat chocolate as long as I had a salad first.

That warped thinking evolved into “If I only eat chocolate and skip my salad, I will cut down on my calories.” Unfortunately, my body did not corroborate with this plan. Somehow, I gained weight eating less calories. At least, I think it was less calories. I never bothered to add them up. When you eat chocolate, you don’t look at the calories. You just pretend it doesn’t have any.

I knew my ‘change of lifestyle” was doomed when I started rationalizing my food choices.

Did you know that curly fries have less carbs? They removed the carbs and… voila!… they’re curly!

Do donuts have carbs? Of course they do, silly! But the kind that have a hole in the middle have less. That’s where they took the carbs out.

Chips fried in peanut oil are not as bad for you because peanuts are good for you. This rule holds for peanut M&M’s too!

There is no question that an apple a day can keep the doctor away, right? How bad can a little caramel around the outside be?

If you can suspend your belief system enough to think caramel apples are good for you, then it’s not much of a jump to think apple pie should be a regular addition to your diet. You could also include apple dumplings, apple crisp, apple turnovers, and apple fritters.

And if you are that far gone, ice cream with your pie is simply adding dairy because you don’t want osteoporosis like your Great-aunt Alma. She probably never ate ice cream.

So… about that lifestyle change? I think I have gone off the bend. Other than countless salads, there is nothing safe. If it’s not good to eat all those great-tasting foods, then all I’m left with is the food that isn’t good for me or the food that tastes like cardboard.

There is no nutritional value in cardboard and you’d have to add chocolate to get it down.