The Powder Sunset and The Coffee Cup

Back a year or so ago when I realized how few calories I could eat each day and keep my goal of losing a pound each week, I looked for ways to reduce calories in things I ate or drank regularly.  When you're dieting and can only eat twelve hundred calories every day, anything you can cut is helpful, and hidden calories can be your demise.

One thing I did was try and remove as much caloric impact as I could from my coffee/hot beverage consumption.  I like tea, coco, chai latte, coffee, apple cider, and most anything you can think of hot.  When I was a little girl and I was sick, my mother would give me a hot jello drink.  Talk about smooth, sweet decadence for a child.  But there are calories in many hot drinks.

First, there's the sweetener.  Sugar, my preferred sweetener had to go.  I prefer sugar over other sweeteners because I'd rather eat something natural that's not healthy for me than something more scientifically, chemically created that's also not good for me.  I replaced it with two massive boxes of calorie-free sweetener packets from Costco.  The "Billion Pouch" of Splenda and the "Trillion Packets" of Purvia.  Maybe it wasn't quite that many each, I suppose I could be exaggerating.

Those zero calorie sweeteners replaced the sugar, but I needed something to replace the milk.  Many of the creamer alternatives still had lots of calories.  The one I settled on, which was by far not the most delicious, (because you really can't get better than half-and-half in your coffee for my money,) was powdered Coffee Mate.  I mean the kind you find at the requisite coffee tables in boring corporate office buildings all around the country.  It does the job, it has the shelf-life, and it's got that cost-effectiveness angle to it that corporate accountants like so much.

By changing these two things, I was able to reduce my morning liquid caloric intake from upwards of two-hundred-fifty to a mere forty calories and still have two large cups of coffee.  Less, if I drank a tea or two.

My diet is over, and yet these vast vats of powder live on.  They live on in boxes that seem full no matter how many packets I try to foist on unsuspecting visitors, "Don't you want another Splenda in your coffee?  You sure?"  I didn't mention the gargantuan tub of Coffee Mate my husband found at Costco.   It felt like I was going to be in low-cal powder purgatory for years to come.

But as it turns out, I'm closer to finished than I thought I was.  In less than a week I'll be back to real milk in my coffee.  No more Coffee Mate.  And those two big boxes of sweetener packets are down to one little container that is shrinking at a measurable rate.  Soon, the low-cal and calorie-free powders will be gone.  I will be able to relax and happily hold my coffee cup with real sugar and real milk and there will be real screaming children in the background and I will be...wait a minute, excuse me, I need to go see which one of my children is about to get a beating now...

The Big Boy Update:  "Thank you" offered.  We have been working on "please" and "thank you" because otherwise you have a very demanding toddler who is just excited he can communicate and doesn't realize he's being rude, but it can still sound rude to everyone else.  And besides, children with manners are always appreciated.  This morning at breakfast he offered up, without prompting, his first "thank you."  It may have been because he was given another piece of Krispy Kreme donut, but either way, we're taking it as a win.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Big Tears.  Her teachers and support staff have all talked about her various levels of crying.  And in particular, her tears.  I should have titled this, "Drama Queen" because if you let her work you over, she will.  Her teachers all said they were aware of different types of cries and that some could just be ignored.  I'm so glad we have teachers who are smart enough to know the difference and don't let her get the better of them.


Someone Once Said:  The itch to be a world saver should not be scratched; it rarely does any good and can drastically shorten your life.