Not a baker’s dozen, but one measly dozen. Twelve. That’s how many butter tarts I baked for Christmas.
Given the tinkering involved with making tarts, and in addition to other baking I did, I thought twelve was a suitable number.
Not according to my sister. “You only made a dozen? I can’t believe you only made a dozen butter tarts.” We shared a laugh at each other’s incredulous position.
The fact that I made nine full-sized pies didn’t seem to matter.
Do you ever get stuck on a detail and miss the big picture? I do. My clients do too. When working towards weight loss, for example, clients can get so focused on a goal weight that they lose sight of all the benefits they gain along the way. This can make the journey arduous.
When you focus on the bigger picture of balanced health and happiness you get healthier and happier, and you lose weight too.
The thing about a specific goal weight is this:
- a) It’s not what’s important in the scheme of things. Excess weight is usually a symptom of other problems. Focusing strictly on the weight loss is working on the symptom and not the source. Getting happy and healthy usually gets to the source.
- b) It might not be achievable or sustainable. It’s better to shoot for a weight range. Our physiology is not so precisely managed. There are many factors involved in weight loss besides calories in/calories out, though our culture would like us to believe otherwise.
I guess my sister really likes butter tarts. (It’s a good thing she’s not coming for Christmas because I only made a dozen.) I love them too. And I love my sister.