My Secret Diet Sabotage

This whole week I’ve felt like [insert your favourite scatological term here]. And I KNOW it’s because you are what you eat and I’ve been eating crap. And I could so easily have switched back over to the Isagenix program – honestly, it doesn’t get much easier than turning on the blender to make a shake. A really filling, tasty, healthful and nurturing shake.

But I didn’t dare do it around my husband.

Why? Because it’s his 40th birthday today and I have a great dinner planned for him:

• Beef ribs (such a treat out here in the land of the cow)
• Rice & bean salad
• Grilled veggies
• Cake.

And the cake. OHMYGODTHECAKE. Can I tell you, for a few minutes, about this cake? First off, my daughters invented it, and I made it myself. Second, it’s an ice cream cake. A three-layer ice cream cake. In a bundt pan. Covered with a mile of whipped cream and chocolate ganache. Ahem. It is a freakin’ MASTERPIECE! A layer of chocolate ice cream into which I blended mini peanut-butter cups. Then, a layer of chocolate fudge (again, thickly infused with mini peanut-butter cups). Next, a layer of vanilla ice cream (with yet more mini peanut-butter cups). I popped it out of the bundt pan and liberally topped it with fresh whipped cream (into which I had whipped just the slightest bit of – yes, peanut butter) and finally, drizzled with homemade chocolate ganache.

If I weren’t already married I might just take this cake to the altar.

So. I want to enjoy that cake. I want my kids to enjoy that cake. Most of all, I want my husband to enjoy that cake. And if the man sees me making a healthy shake for breakfast, he will get the bug and go all healthy on me. And this is a man for whom there are no shades of gray. When he goes on a diet, he goes 100%. Weighs his portions, calculates calories to the third decimal point. This man, let’s call him Diet Man, would not appreciate the love, hard work and imagination that went into his birthday cake. He would be frustrated that it even existed, tempting him. He would wonder why we had been so thoughtless as to put this before him, when a small bowl with 30g of strawberries and exactly 1/2 packet of Splenda would have been more appropriate.

So, for a week, I’ve been burying Diet Man under a mountain of pizza, chicken wings and microwave meals. I’ve practically drowned him with Coke Zero and even bought chips on my last outing to the grocery store. All in preparation for a relaxed enjoyable birthday dinner.

Then back to diet boot camp on Sunday!

Just in time for Mother’s Day…will they bring me my shake in bed, do you think?