There is a Seinfeld episode where Elaine, concerned about the fact that she could no longer buy Today contraceptive sponges, puts her boyfriend through a rigorous examination to determine whether he is worthy enough to justify using up her dwindling supply. “Sponge-worthy” was the term she used to describe the threshold he needed to meet.  I apply a similar (though very different) analysis to cheating when it comes to eating things I shouldn’t. I can’t really cheat much on dairy – maybe the occasional taste of a sauce that has a little butter in it – but I can cheat occasionally and have something sweet.  When I was first diagnosed with diabetes, my doctor said, “You can have birthday cake,” but, as I like to point out, he never said specifically that the only birthday cake I could have was my own birthday cake.
Of course, I don’t want to push it. I don’t want one torrid affair with a good-looking cookie to throw me off my whole program. To justify cheating on my low-carb low-sugar life, that cookie has to not only look good, it has to be good. It must taste at least as good as it looks. It must be worth the extra walking, carb deprivation or disappointment-at-your-meter-reading that comes later. In short, it must be cheat-worthy.
Everyone’s definition of cheat-worthy is going to be different. Mine generally involves chocolate. Not just any chocolate. Milk chocolate isn’t chocolate enough. The darker the better (and this is good because dark chocolate is better for me anyway). Give me one of those flourless chocolate cakes filled with molten chocolate covered with chocolate sauce with shaved dark chocolate on top. I recently discovered a Nutella-dipped chocolate chip cookie at an Italian bakery near me. Now that’s worthy of throwing caution to the wind! Maybe you’re a strawberry shortcake person, or perhaps strudel floats your boat. Whatever it is, find what you think is worth it. Then, limit your cheating to things that are truly cheat-worthy. Treat “cheating” as if, like Elaine, you only have a limited number of sponges left to use.
I find that over the years figuring out what is cheat-worthy for me has become instinctual. I can walk up to a dessert tray at a party and immediately scan it to determine the cheat-worthiness of its contents. I no longer even desire things that are not cheat-worthy. If there’s nothing on the dessert tray that fits the bill I don’t settle, I have nothing. In the Seinfeld episode, Elaine ultimately decides her boyfriend is worth a sponge, but when he comes back for a second go-around the next morning she demurs because she doesn’t think he’s worth two. That’s why I don’t bother settling if there’s nothing cheat-worthy available. It’s a lousy feeling to have eaten something you shouldn’t have, to find it unsatisfying, and then have to deal with the consequences even though you didn’t really enjoy the good parts. I know you know what I mean. We’re still talking about high meter readings, right?
I do think allowing some small level of cheating is necessary for me. It actually keeps me in line. Cold turkey with no exceptions is not a discipline I can maintain. But mostly saying “no” with infrequent exceptions is something I can maintain. Just knowing that at some point if something good enough comes along, something cheat-worthy, I can have it, allows me to take a pass when something only so-so comes my way. I find this is a good way to keep my cheating to a minimum. It’s also a way to justify the occasional molten flourless chocolate cake or Nutella-dipped cookie. For which I am eternally grateful to Elaine.