Wait, Why Is This In My Mouth?

Okay, so, at this very moment I am eating a “dessert,” and also trying to get the taste of said “dessert” out of my mouth. I am doing this because a) I’m on a low-carb/no-sugar/stop-eating-crap-like-it’s-good-for-you diet and b) crappy dessert is better than no dessert. Possibly. Possibly not. I’ll let you know.

Everyone is dieting right now because “bikini season” is coming (why is this a thing?!) and because our society has weird values. I’m not dieting with any desire for jamming my body into 3 ounces of fabric. Rather, I am dieting because I had a kid, came out of it 15 pounds heavier, then added 5 pounds of chocolate, wine and cheese to that and now 2 years later it’s probably a good idea to trim back my eating habits.

It’s not like I take care of my body and eat right, but my gut is full of unjust fat dictators that take over anyway. It’s like I eat whatever I want, whenever I want, I don’t exercise, and then I gain weight. Big surprise. You really can’t be upset about that. (Well, actually, I am a little upset about it, but I have lofty goals for my laziness and wine consumption.)

I started exercising, and I’m still doing that (much to my own dismay), but it’s time for the big guns. I need to actually limit the amount of food that goes in my face. Just a little. And perhaps try things other than chocolate, alcohol and bread products. Perhaps.

Plus, did you know that stomping around, dripping with sweat, frightening your neighbors with your grimaced face only burns 150 calories in 30 minutes? That’s a glass and a half of juice. It’s less than half an order of french fries. It’s a glass and a half of Pinot Noir (who’s the dummy that drank juice instead?). 150 calories in my day is like plankton in a whale’s mouth. It just flies right in there without so much as a blink of the eye. (And then I SHOOT IT OUT MY BLOWHOLE! Just kidding. I don’t have a blowhole. I just wanted to carry the analogy a little further. And say blowhole.)

At any rate, I’m on a diet. And holy mother, is some diet food gross. Well, actually, I think the gross part comes in when you try to recreate the experience of “bad” foods with sugar substitutes and other man-made demon poop.

Take, for example, “Stevia in the Raw” which I have paid money for and put in my mouth. It’s yucky. Super yucky. The capital of Yuckistan. I keep waiting to get used to it, but no. The box says that it has a delicious natural sweetness, but this, friends, is not true. It has an initial lack of sweetness, followed by a very aggressive sweet-like sensation that appears in your mouth after you’ve swallowed, and hangs around until it damn well feels like leaving. Well, isn’t that peculiar? And thoroughly unenjoyable.

Yesterday, I tried putting canned white kidney beans in my salad because one of the recipes said to and—ick. I also put in low-fat feta cheese, which just kind of tastes like ground up packing peanuts in watery milk. With salt. It was the grossest salad of all time.

But because I’m more tenacious than reasonable, I keep trying these recipes. I should just decide that a no-sugar, low-fat diet doesn’t involve sweets or elaborate salads with delicious cheeses, and be on my way. Stick to veggies in their God-given form. But I don’t. I think, “Maybe this is the recipe that changes my mind about this diet.” [Spoiler alert: it isn't.]

Which brings me to now, eating a “mousse” of some kind made of low-fat ricotta cheese, Stevia, cocoa powder and decaffeinated coffee crystals. Oh, and vanilla.

It is unpleasant.

I just realized, though, that perhaps the diet people have a brilliant plan. If the idea is to get me off sweets, they’re totally Clockwork Oranging me. Like, every time I think of dessert now, I’ll think of this mealy, suspiciously sweet, mocha-flavored disaster and my lips will snap together like a clam making pearls for a wholesaler in the mafia. And it’s totally effing working.

Nice move, diet people. Nice move.