Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2004-07-27 - 4:07 p.m.

The Burn

Does caffeine-free Coke have caffeine in it? Because I'm thinking it does. Yes, I may be calling our friends at Coca-Cola Bottling liars. Liars! It does TOO! I bought a giant humungous bottle of the stuff for myself as a treat because they kids are away, and it's keeping me up nights, I swear it.

I've been way cutting back on caffeine - that's the problem. No more coffee after lunch. I'm ruining myself. It's my fault. I'm going to become one of those caffeine-sensitive princesses who eats a teeny-tiny bite of chocolate at four p.m. and is still awake polishing the leaves on her house plants at two-thirty (note to self: get some house plants.)

I believe in the no-mollycoddling Boot Camp theory of nutrition. Don't get your body used to healthy stuff. Make it deal with whatever's around. Fats, salt, sugar, even Twinkies, it all goes down the gullet. Spare the bod, spoil the food. You stop eating all that stuff, pretty soon you CAN'T eat all that stuff. My best friend can't eat high-fat stuff. Terrible things happen to her when she eats too much fat. Trust me, you don't want to know. I don't know why she even goes out with me. I'm a bad influence. I don't exactly force fat down her, but I, you know, I just kind of order it ("Gimme the fattest thing you got, in cream sauce, stat!") and then I eat it in front of her ("And put some toasted coconut on it first!") and maybe I moan over it a little bit ("And some melted butter to dip it in!") and before you know it, she's eating something she'd never eat alone. I'm bad, that way.

I gave up half and half in my coffee, and I'm drinking it with non-fat Coffee Grayer, or whatever they call that stuff. I tried nonfat half-and-half, which also just grays your coffee, and then I compared the labels of that and the chemical stuff and discovered the only real difference was that the half-and-half could supposedly trace its lineage back to some distant cow. Nutritionally, it was pretty much the same stuff, only the cow-related version was twice the price. So I bought the stuff that's only seen a cow out the laboratory window, and it tastes pretty much the same, which is to say it doesn't, much, except it's full of sugar (a food group to which I still subscribe wholeheartedly.) But hey! I have virtue now! Pass that butter!

But I think it's probably all a mistake. You know how they tell you that if you work out to gain muscle, and you do it for a while, and then you DON'T (and I am sure this would be my plan) all that muscle just turns to flab? Immediately? So by working out, you're GAINING EVENTUAL FLAB. Now, that doesn't sound smart to me. It's the same theory - spoil the body with healthy food and excercise, and it will thank you by refusing to digest Twinkies, sending them directly to the underside of your upper arm.

I prefer to keep my system in rock-hard shape by continually challenging it with fat, sugar, additives, and lethargy. Deal, body! In this way, I have always been able to drink espresso at nine and sleep just fine. This ain't the Ritz. You get what you get. Tough up. No whining.

But recent minor health issues (stop that snickering this instant) have encouraged me to cut down the caffeine and fats, and to take supplements. It scares me. Supplements! Like THAT'S smart! It's got to be obvious what that's going to do. "Oh, hey - why do all this work to extract nutrients from FOOD? To hell with that - just send down those PILLS!" And then all that unused food will be sent directly to - yeah, you get the picture. Mollycoddling. If you let your body wimp out on too much whole-grain soy vegetable protein powder stuff, it's going to let you down when the going gets tough, believe me. It's going to give you a serious case of regrets over a minor little root beer float, or a tiny little appetizer platter of Coconut Shrimp. Or, in my case, a tall frosty glass of (supposedly) Caffeine Free Coca-Cola. Sigh.

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