The Backpack Diet

Tildy walks out of her bedroom. Her cheeks are bulging. It is obvious that something is in her mouth. I panic, of course. I'm thinking of marbles and dice and choking.

"Tildy. What is in your mouth? Spit that out now!" And I offer my hand under her mouth wondering what will appear.

She does what she is told. She is a good listener. And my hand is suddenly filled with some sort of well-chewed carbohydrate. What IS this?

"Tildy, what have you been eating? Where did you get it?"

It is time for some parental investigation.

I have my suspicions, of course. I head to the ladybug backpack and it is HEAVY. Within the polka-dotted pouch I find baggies filled with peanuts and the cookie from yesterday; I find baggies of apple slices and carrots from several days ago; I find baggies of graham crackers from last week; I find a baggie with my flash drive. Matilda has been squirreling away food and household items for quite awhile.

I have noticed her running off with handfuls of dinner and baggies. I have stopped her from packing away the cheese and the hard-boiled egg and the casserole. But I have not really noticed the frequency of the packed up snacks. I have been bothered by this habit mainly because we are going through baggies like toilet paper, and what about saving the earth one baggie at a time?

Why is Matilda packing away her food?

So I ask her, "Why are you packing up food in your backpack?"

She answers, "So I have food in my backpack."

Tildy is smart. Rather than saving her extra food on her butt, thighs, or stomach, she is saving it in her backpack for when she is truly hungry. I think she just might have invented a new diet plan.

I used to diet. I think it was trendy in the Jane Fonda era. I mean, who wouldn't diet if they walked around dressed in spandex leotards and leg warmers? I ate toast for breakfast, an apple for lunch, and green beans and a hard boiled egg for dinner. I don't know how I found the energy to get out of bed on this diet. But this was not about weight. Not really. This was about control. It was just a game. Let's see how few calories I can live on. Can I keep it under 1000?

I stopped intentionally dieting when I went to college and found myself having to purchase my own food. The foods I choose at the grocery store were decided heavily by price. If any item cost more than one dollar, I wouldn't buy it. Again, another game of control. I was dancing hard. I didn't need to diet. I needed to eat all the Taco Bell fat I could to keep going. And let's face it, a shortage of money does limit one's food consumption.

Over the years, I have fine-tuned my diet philosophy. Now my goal is to eat as much as I possibly can and still feel good. In this way I am constantly bumping up my metabolism. I figure that if I cut my calories, my body is just going to slow down. If I increase my calories, doesn't it reason my body should speed up?

Here are my other "diet" rules:

Throw out the scale and weigh in using a TIGHT pair of jeans.

If after something is eaten, you feel like you just swallowed an ocean of live baby whales, perhaps too much food may have been consumed in one sitting. Learn from this.

If you are feeling or looking fat, console yourself that a) muscle weighs more than fat, b) perhaps you are pregnant, or c) wouldn't it be better to be fat than pregnant?

And in the words of Michael Pollan from In Defense of Food: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Really what other diet advice is needed?

Tildy walks out of her room a little later. She is chewing again. She holds in her hand a cookie.

"I want a cookie!" demands Oscar.

"You should have saved yours from yesterday like Tildy," I answer.

"Mom, where is my turtle backpack? I want to start saving food like Tildy," says Marek.

Control.

Tildy now controls the food supply instead of me.