How FroYo Turned into YoYo…Dieting

I went to FroYo today. It’s been one of my St. Louis staples for about 2.5 years now. FroYo was from the Loop…and it was proud. Then it migrated to the Central West End, to Chesterfield, and the rest of the nation under pseudo names like “Forever Yogurt” (lame) and YoYo (as in dieting?) and everything else you can think of.

Poor TCBY.

FroYo is a perfect example of my dietitian sayings.

1. Foods are not good nor bad

2. Dishes can be made healthy or unhealthy

3. Moderate your life

So FroYo is marketed under this false pretense that it is uber healthy. Possibly. I mean, it can be. But once you see the toppings bar, sometimes healthy is exchanged for tasty.

Saying 1: Foods are not good nor bad…

Depends if you go with non fat original tart and blueberry toppings,

Or…

A mixture of cake batter, New York cheese cake, and red velvet cake topped with cookie dough bites and whipped cream.

That second one wasn’t mine.

Fine. It was.

But it was mine after a 5 mile walk around the park in like the dead STL heat.

Saying 2: The same foods can be made healthy or unhealthy…

When counseling the important questions aren’t always what are you eating…but how.

How are you preparing your burger? Is it 3 oz of extra lean beef on an Arnold whole wheat bun or is something you see on the food network’s Diners, Drive-ins & Dives or that show where that dude somehow seems to put away like a half a cow every time and it also happens to be soaked in a gallon of sugary sauce or mayo…?

Saying 3: Moderate your life…

“I went home saw the cookies on the counter top, was too tired to make proper food, grabbed the bag, sat in front of the TV, looked down and saw I had finished a whole row of cookies, got depressed that I had finished a whole row of cookies and decided…fine, I’ll just finish the next row of cookies…”

At this point, I don’t think the obvious nutrition intervention is to say… “each cookie is 70 calories of fat and sugar and causing weight gain!!” Taking all those links and separating them into hows is more appropriate. How did you get home to find cookies on the counter top when you knew you’d be tempted to eat them? How did you let yourself get so hungry that you weren’t able to make food? How could you prevent that? How did you manage to finish a row without noticing? Is the TV a barrier?

It’s more like re-working those lifestyle skills. It’s the same problem that led me to realize there was no rule saying I couldn’t bring a regular coffee cup into the car with me on the way to work. 

Problem? 

Only if you’re in a hurry, don’t have time to drink half of the cup and proceed to spill hot coffee on your lap while slamming on the breaks.
Otherwise,
it’s perfectly fine.
In moderation.

Like when you yoyo with FroYo..