So, I never used to be much of a baker, but since I started dieting, my kitchen produces a steady stream of homemade cookies and cakes. I've always liked to cook, but the baking is new. It's relaxing, and it makes me so happy...and then I realize: I have just produced something with several thousand calories in it.

Hmmm...

The thing is, I'm very happy to just take these offerings and give them to family, friends, and lately, random strangers. (Like delivery men.)

I enjoy this immensely. My sister accuses me of trying to fatten her up so that we'll meet in the middle. (Me on the way down, her on the way up!)

Anyone else have a habit of enjoying extravagant foods vicariously?

I guess I need to focus on my skinny friends, so that I don't have to feel guilty!

Sometimes it's nice to just have fun with food. Since i'm on the nutrisystem, I can't really eat outside their foods. sometimes ill have dinner parties with my friends and make a 3 hour long 4 course meal and not eat a bit of it !! lol

I do sometimes get a weird interest in watching people eat something that I would like to eat...but that happens when I watch food porn on the food network. I don't actually make fattening foods. I do love to make these very healthy low cal muffins and I enjoy eating them as well as watching others eat them.

Wow...that's great willpower! I only wish I had willpower like that! If I bake, I usually end up eating it too.

I used to do that all the time when I was anorexic. I would make cookies and cakes and pies all the time for my family to eat. I would watch them eat as a test of my strength, but that is a psychological thing... After a while, my family literally would not let me bake unless I ate it. I guess all I'm trying to say is be careful that is doesn't turn into something more.

You're lucky though, I don't have the willpower anymore, if it's sweet and in this house, I eat it!

I was never a big sweets person, but I always loved to bake for some reason. Right now EVERYONE wants me to bake birthday cakes for them so I'm always making some crazy thing for someone's birthday

I like seeing others get enjoyment from what I've made. Occasionally I'll have some, but most of the time I pick on some fruit

Nobody bothers me because I was always that way, I guess.

I bring it to work because no one there cares about calorie intake. They love to eat, too, so it's win/win.

I rarely ever watch The Food Network, except for when I'm 'on plan', I have Food Network on a lot. Especially that Guy Fieri, what ever his name is, on 'Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. I don't have the willpower to do the baking and cooking...I can't have any evil foods in the house.

I haven't been baking. I would definitely be eating it if I did. Actually, I have given up Food Network and Pinterest because of the constant stream of food porn. I'm a very visual person, so I can't watch it, bake it, or look at it...definitely a trigger for me. Sometimes pizza commercials even get me. Thank God for the DVR!!

I have had this done to me, and more focally to my daughter. Since my mum became diabetic she loves to buy food she is not allowed to eat and feed it to my family, watching at the table to make sure she can see us enjoying it. It's not too bad when we have a short stay, but if we are there for several days I start to object to my 5 year old child being filled with every sweet she can find. I know it's supposed to be a grandparent's prerogative to spoil grandchildren, but my I don't want my daughter ever to get overweight and then she doesn't need worry about it, break her metabolism with dieting or have to reverse unhealthy habits. Because my daughter is slim my mum seems to think she is immune to calories and will feed her until she is sick - the result of "too much jumping up and down" so the message doesn't get through.

Not so much anymore. I've come to strongly believe that most high-calorie foods (especially the high glycemic starches and sugars) aren't good for anyone, so it's kind of like giving the gift of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and a host of other inflammatory deseases...

I still sometimes get caught up in the sugar hype. Whenever anyone thinks of "treats" it always seems to be some ungodly combination of sugar, white flour, salt, and fat (or at least three out of the four). And the more I read, the more I'm convinced that nearly everyone in America is eating way too much of these kinds of foods - and that even thin and underweight people are risking their health by indulging on such a regular basis.

If everyone cut their sugar intake just by 25% I think many folks (thin and fat) would experience significant health improvements.

It's not my job to be food police, and sometimes I do buy a gift (or a treat for myself) that breaks my own rules. For example I bought gourmet cupcakes to take to visit my family for Christmas, but my husband and I did discuss our "new food philosophy" and we decided to buy and bring two dozen mini-cupcakes for the 11 family members rather than our initial plan to buy one huge cupcake for each person. So instead of a cupcake the size of a large grapefruit, everyone got two cupcakes the size of golf balls. Still a treat, but not a day's worth of calories.

I also make and give my homemade jerky. It's not the healthiest food on the planet, but I can incorporate it into my own food plan, so I don't feel guilty about giving it away to others (and it's lower in salt and in some cases sugar than commercial jerky - and my only preservative is the salt in the soy sauce).

I also give gifts of my wondeful healthy food discoveries. I don't diet by deprivation or try to punish myself thin. Instead my strategy is to buy and eat the tastiest, yummiest, most interesting healthy food I can, so when I discover a healthy treat I want to share it with others (Sometimes this works well, some times it's a flop, but at least I've given the gift of opportunity - giving friends and family the experience of trying something they might not have otherwise).

A couple Christmases ago I gave friends and family "cocktail fruit," which is a pommelo tangerine hybrid. They're bout the size of a grapefruit and taste like lemonade. The rind can be yellow or green, and the ones I bought were a deep kelly/lime green. They were a hit with everyone except one brother-in-law who complained "too many seeds."

I was surprised to find that I get just as much joy in giving healthy treats as decadent ones, and I was even more surprised that most people seem to enjoy them just as much, often even more (because they're often foods the person wouldn't have tried themselves). I especially love when someone I've gifted healthy food, will call and ask for the recipe or where I bought it.

A lot of people think healthy food has to taste like dirt, and I love giving gifts that prove the opposite. Healthy food can taste just as good, and often even better than the unhealthy stuff.

kaplods, thanks for that thoughtful reply post! It gave me some food for thought (pun intended).

In the past I have done like Nibbles and baked/cooked up a pile of things that I wouldn't eat myself. In retrospect, I think it was a food obsession kind of thing where all I thought about was food and recipes, even though I was keeping to my diet at the time. Perhaps this was one reason I ended up failing.

I'm glad Nibbles posted about this ... I will not let myself get into that behavior again.

Same here, and for the same reasons, of suffering from an eating disorder. And there are awful vestiges of this behavior left over from that time. I find myself urging my mother to eat things that I don't let myself eat anymore, or buying things for her that I'd like to eat myself. No, it's not good for me, or for her. She's obese and on anti-cholesterol medication and has a teenager's eating habits. I need to stop this now, and consider it a great weakness of mine.

seaf, I completely agree. This whole calorie counting thing is really hard, learning that it's ok to eat as long as it's the right foods. I'm having to retrain my whole way of thinking. It's very difficult!

I definitely have found that now when I bake I share the goodies more. Which sharing with delivery guys sounds like an awesome idea!
However, I still do partake. I simply try to limit my intake. I couldn't actually not eat food like that LOL.