Just a little piece of cake...

At my JCP store, we celebrate each month's birthdays with a big sheet-style birthday cake. Depending on my work schedule, I might miss out on the cake altogether, or arrive at work when the cake is only a sweet memory leaving a trail of crumbs and frosting. And sometimes there it is waiting for me on the break room table in all its glory, begging to be eaten.

Strangely, that cake doesn't always appeal to me nowadays, so it doesn't torture me the way cake would in my fat days. When I got to work this afternoon, I inspected the cake (pink, in honor of breast cancer awareness month) and thought I might have just a little piece of it at break time.

At break time, I cut a little piece for myself.  It was about 3"x3" - that's a very small piece for me. I ate it slowly while listening to a very slender, very young, very pretty and very sweet coworker tell me that she can't eat cake frosting because it makes her puke (which is very, very hard for me to imagine, but this girl is not a liar). When I was done, I tossed my paper plate in the trash without a single thought of having another little piece of cake, as I would have in the old days.

Then I stood up and took one last look at the cake. A big chunk still remained - maybe 9"x9" - and suddenly I remembered a cake incident from another job, many years ago. On that long past day, I watched an obese coworker grab a leftover birthday cake, about 9"x9", grab a plastic fork, grab a Dr. Pepper, and settle down at a table in the break room to eat the entire cake herself, right off the serving plate. And I remembered vividly how shocked I was by that, not because she was eating the whole cake, but because she was eating the whole cake in public. Me, I would've eaten the whole cake too, but in private.

That was a long, long time ago, both in terms of time and of personal growth. I don't have to eat the whole cake any more, and I eat it in public, because after all, it's just a little piece of cake...

Jean

Good for you!

Great perspective!

 I like the way you wrote it and the story itself- isn't it great how you and your perspective changed? Good for you!

Great perspective because it is just cake! It's not the cake per se that is the issue it's the amount.

good for you jean i too in the old days would have eaten the whole cake in private ...dawn

Thanks for the post. Very inspiring, as your posts typically are. Moderation is a hard thing to come by, at least for me it is. Seems like you have gotten to that place.

I never would have eaten the big whole cake in one setting.  Unfortunately I would have had the whole cake eaten just in 20 or 30 small increments all day.  Can't stand to see large amounts of food piled on a plate, never could.  My hard part is not going back for that other small piece.  But I am working on it and my band has helped me along the way.

 Great post! After surgery I would have the WORST guilt over food being left on my plate, now it does not even phase me. We just went away for our anniversary and I felt NO guilt when I handed my plate to the waitress with all my leftovers on it, I don't even feel the need to bring them home with me. I also don't feel bad about walking away from the table without having had three courses (even when it's all included, as it was on this trip!). I paid to eat what I could, and I did, loved it and walked away feeling satisfied and happy, rather then sick and bloated. 

I love the freedom that I have now that I am free from my food demons, sure there are still times I struggle but its nothing like it was!