Let Them Eat Cake

It was a line attributed to Marie Antoinette, probably erroneously, in answer to a widespread problem that the peasants purportedly had no bread.  Whether uttered in jest, or uttered in foolishness, or never uttered at all, we may never really know.  Of course, ‘cake’ at the time was splattered batter scraped from the walls of the oven in which the sovereign bread was baked.  Those caked on layers had to be cleaned, and were often left outside the establishments for the starving beggars.  So who knows, maybe ‘let them eat cake’ was merely a practical solution to a common problem of community hunger.

Neither bread nor cake are good for my weight, though.  Yet here I am, having completely given up on my post-holiday diet, taking advantage of every opportunity to welcome the carbs with, “Well….maybe just one.”  My friend says that you have to have two or have none.  Having two balances out the hips, she says.  I dislike feeling deprived, or unbalanced, so two it is.

We’d been having salads for dinner, seemingly healthy and low-calorie frozen meals for lunch, and yogurt for breakfast.  Well, that’s what I was having anyway.  I managed to do that for a couple of weeks, with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables thrown in for variety.  With a little planning I found that I could do it with relative ease.  Then I forgot to stop at the store after work one day.  Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner replaced the greenery of the night before.  It was easy to just fall off after that.

And then somebody at work had a grandbaby.  We had cake.  Someone had a birthday, and we had cake.  Then somebody retired, and we had more cake.  Our coffee bar was laden with different types of sliced cakes from the local grocery’s bakery.  I think there was a sale. Someone else had stopped off at a bakery on the way to work one morning and thought enough of me to share.

Bless his heart…..

So it’s one or two of something with coffee in the morning, then when that wears off and it’s not quite lunchtime, it’s one or two more, then after lunch, and then…. You get the idea.  By the time I got home at night I was so starved for additional carbs that I was having potatoes with a side of rice, buttered bread to accompany, and macaroni and cheese for color.  Then it was a bowl of cereal for dessert.

Somebody at work suggested we do a dessert Friday.  My chair groaned in anticipation of the added pounds.  My pants are already protesting the recent festivities, and my body simply cannot afford another bakery sale.

I say we do something better to mark those noteworthy events at work.  A tray of vegetables is no more difficult to transport than a cake.  Better yet, get a small cooler with a handle and throw the veggies in.  Or just get a bucket and don’t bother washing anything.  We have sinks at work.

My co-workers might not care if my pants don’t fit, but I do.  Let them eat cake.

Let me eat salad.