Red Lobster? Try blue whale.

"Butter and sour cream?" asked the waitress.

"Yes, of course!" My sister laughed and shut her menu.  "it's just one baked potato, it won't kill me" my sister said, smiling, as she grabbed a cheddar bay biscuit out of the complimentary basket famously offered at every Red Lobster in the world.  Despite having never lost her 60 pounds of baby weight and supposedly being on Weight Watchers, she saw no problem with ordering a baked potato with all the fixings.

I said nothing.  I set my mouth into an immobile grin and vowed to say nothing.  But in my mind I heard everything I wanted to say, everything I felt to be true.

"But it's not 'just one baked potato'.  It's a part of a whole.  You have one baked potato, you have one slice of cake, you have one cheeseburger, but altogether you have a whole bunch of CRAP.  Maybe it'd be alright if it really WAS just one baked potato, if you didn't have the cake and the burger or the chips and the chocolate, but it won't be.  And honestly, who would want it to be?  Who would want to choose just one indulgence and bypass everything else?  Sure, you can say 'oh there are healthy versions of cake and fries!  There are soy burgers and low fat cheese!' but who are you kidding?  We all know it's not the same.  Nothing tastes as good as the rich, greasy slab of authentic aged cheddar atop a thick hunk of Grade A angus ground beef.  Low fat ice cream is nothing compared to the decadent creaminess of Ben and Jerry's, no matter what you tell yourself. 

I don't want 'just one baked potato'.  I want it ALL.  I want the potato and the burgers and the ice cream and the fried chicken and the white chocolate and the pancakes with maple syrup and the milkshake and the fettucini alfredo.  And I don't want 'just a taste' or a 'portion controlled' amount.  I want as much as I can eat, I want as much as my stomach can hold without making me sick.  Or maybe even enough to make me sick so that I can go back and eat some more. But I can't do this. Not unless I want to be a potential candidate for The Biggest Loser or True Life: I weigh 450 pounds. 

So what solution is there?  If I eat just a little of what I really want, I'll be fine, yeah, I won't gain weight.  But I'm left hungry.  I'm left feeling deprived, having known the taste of that warm melted butter on my tongue and that salty fry in my belly, but only able to look at the rest of what I want with an inflamed longing.  But what if I don't eat any of it at all?  What if I make it so that I don't even remember the taste, don't even consider taking a bite?  If I make it so that there are so many 'just ones' that I've passed up that I can now have as many as I want?  Now doesn't that sound nice?

So you go on and eat your baked potato.  Eat it and then salivate longingly after the chocolate lava cake you want, or perhaps eat it and then have the lava cake, too, remaining fat and unhappy in your unchanging body. I'll take my broccoli and shrimp cocktail, thanks.