The M&M Diet | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming our newest contributor to BCN, Kathy Manos Penn, a native of the "Big Apple", by way of the "Peach City" - Atlanta. Kathy is a former English teacher, author of The Ink Penn blog, and a communications professional in corporate America. Now with Kathy on board, I advise all other contributors to mind your punctuation and syntax.

    Do you keep up with the news on the latest nutrition guidelines? If an update makes the paper or one of my daily newsfeeds I read it, though I don't go searching for that information. Last year's news was that eggs are good for us. In years past, we learned butter is better for us than margarine, after we had all tried for years to give up butter. Again this year, we're encouraged to limit sugar and saturated fats and to eat more veggies and fruits.

    That's a challenge at my house, as my husband has an overly large sweet tooth and will tell you there just aren't that many veggies he likes-especially of the green variety. I've learned through the years that he's not putting Brussels sprouts, spinach, or squash in his mouth but will tolerate green beans and asparagus and will, thankfully, occasionally eat a salad.

    After the new guidelines came out last year, an artist pal of mine posted a color coded nutrition guide on facebook. It seemed only appropriate that an artist would be attracted to a food chart based on colors. Whether she follows the guidelines or not is another story entirely.

    My husband's comment on her post? "That's why I like M&Ms; they have all the colors of the food groups needed to build strong bones and bodies and healthy minds."

    How can you argue with that logic? I'd love to follow an M&M diet; wouldn't you? Instead I'll continue to try to eat a healthy diet and watch my weight. I've been watching it for years ... watching it go up ... and come down. It seems to go up pretty quickly and then take months to come back down as I battle the same pounds over and over.

    I have friends who've had great success with Weight Watchers and some who haven't, and friends who try fad diets as they come and go. Remember the Scarsdale Diet? When I was teaching many years ago, it seemed as though the entire teachers' lounge was on that one. Even Warren Buffett has weighed in with his eating philosophy: "I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among 6-year-olds. So I decided to eat like [one]."

    Thankfully, since my original personal trainer introduced me to My Fitness Pal online and coached me to eat more protein, I'm no longer tempted by new diets. When I need to get extremely serious, as in when those stubborn five pounds just linger, I start logging my food intake online. Somehow that keeps me straight ... most of the time. That's right, even with the logging, I'm not always successful at sticking to the 1200 calorie limit required for someone 5'3" to lose a few pounds.

    The plan that's working for me right now is eating more protein and less dairy and starch. I miss cheese and crackers most of all, but the plan got me through the holidays and through my January birthday season without significant weight gain, so I'm sticking with it for a bit.

    Eating M&Ms, though, seem so much easier and tastier. Visions of sugar-plums ... I mean M&Ms ... are dancing in my head, until I consider that this diet idea comes from the man who once came home from work and told me he'd eaten five Payday bars. When I asked, "Five, why on earth five?" he responded, "I ran out of change." I'm thinking that he and Warren Buffett would get along famously.