This evening I went out for a walk in the beautiful sunshine that followed a torrential rainfall here in Madison Wisconsin. I love walking into the sunlight and feeling the warmth on my face and the bright light in my eyes. I was walking in the direction of a strip mall with this pizza place that makes to most wonderfully tasty marina sauce. I began to imagine adding to my pleasure by going to the pizza place and having the pasta with marina sauce–yes I was having a carb craving! Oh how wonderful it would taste and feel….though no doubt the sauce was loaded with sugar! Is that what I really wanted to put in my body? I began to think about what I had back home that could counteract, even do battle with the image I had of that sinful meal. As a point of reference, I remembered alleviating a carb craving by eating juicy fruits.
Hmmm. I had a large mango in my refrigerator–it was very ripe and was ready to be eaten. Okay–but I still wanted the pasta and marina sauce! So I conjured up an image of the pasta and marina sauce doing battle with the mango–all these foods dancing above my head. I imagined the skins of the juicy mango wiping the messy pasta and sauce down the gutter and the beautifully rich and juicy fruit of the mango expanding and glistening in the sun and being served in front of me on a golden platter. Just to make the pasta even less attractive I thought about a dog walking over to the last remnants of the sinful meal that was being washed down the drain and taking a crap on it. Now the mango was starting to feel wonderfully appealing while the pasta and marina sauce felt messy and soiled.
I imagined myself eating the mango–what it would smell like and how the juices would feel in my mouth as I chewed and swallowed. I imagined writing this article and starting the trickle effect of other people using powerful imagery to make better food choices.
So I went home and enjoyed every bit of that mango and I wrote this article. What are you going to eat next?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Haha, good one, Sonya. It’s brilliant. I’ll just have to replace that pizza with fish!
Awesome. I didn’t think there was a way to spoil pasta. Now I know better!
Ha ha Jen and Alex. Now you know it is possible to resist temptation. I’ll let you define what it is that you want to resist though:)
{ 1 trackback }