Some time ago AOL featured an article concerning weight gain and how it has proliferated around the country. Believe it or not, one main factor cited was church participation. The reason? Social events, particularly pot luck lunches and dinners. Those of you who belong to the Presbyterian groups know this to be true, even though we have frequently heard it said that the Baptists outdo us in that category! On the way home from church as we pass by the restaurants teeming with people at 12:15, 1HW usually remarks, "The Baptists have beat us again!" Indeed, we have come to believe that pot lucks are the culprit for our constant weight loss battle, since we have been averaging three a month recently. While we can ignore those demon white, fried, and sweet foods at home, when we spot chicken tettrazini, enchilada casseroles, tamales, dumplings, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, and yummy desserts in the buffet line, all of our carefully orchestrated constraint goes out the window. Sure enough, within a day or two of the scrumptious pot luck dinner, two pounds magically appear at the morning weigh in. This week has been doubly challenging! We had two pot lucks within three days!
Now, you may ask, what sensible items did we take for healthy consumption? I hate to admit it, but we are pleading guilty by reason of temporary insanity. At Wednesday's dinner here at the resort we took a yummy chicken tettrazini, made the old-fashioned way with bechamel sauce which included butter as a chief ingredient. For last night's pot luck at the SEEKer kick-off meeting at church, we took spinach, fat free cream cheese, olive, and sun-dried tomato wraps; ham, fat-free cream cheese, green chili, and onion wraps; AND the best chocolate pizza we have EVER tasted. That yummy creation came from a friend who made it for the Wednesday pot luck, and I have never had so many requests for a recipe. In fact, a whole group said they would love it if we brought that for every meal.
Fortunately, I only put on one pound with these feasts (still down ten pounds from the start), so the pot lucks did only minimal damage. 1HW chose not to weigh this morning, as he was down 18 pounds yesterday and didn't want to spoil that good news! Now, do you think we will quit attending those weighty dinners? Not a chance! The company is excellent, and the recipes have been terrific! How about the rest of you? Have you discovered the same problem with pot lucks? The inquiring mind wants to know!
