Have your cake but don't eat it

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Posted at 11:46AM, 19 August 2009 by Andrea McGinniss - Acting editor, bbcgoodfood.com

It's been 3 weeks, 2 days and 5 hours since I last ate cake. No big deal, you might think, but when you spend all day every day salivating over the recipes on the site and sitting with the Good Food cookery team located one metre from the test kitchen, believe me, it's quite testing.

The website team has been sitting in this most precarious of positions for just over a year now, and it's a very rare day when we don't get offered some tantalising treat or other, from a full Christmas dinner in July to a big wodge of cake , or three, on any given day. Yes, I know it's hard to feel sorry for us, but when you find yourself thinking just one piece of cake a day is an achievement, you know you're headed for trouble. Big, fat trouble.

According to a study, gazing at gorgeous pictures of cake can help you lose weight. Could it be true?

Hence my cold turkey approach to cake, or indeed anything sweet. I'm going to see if I can last a month and then take it from there. Instead of eating something like this in my lunch break, I indulge in another guilty pleasure - some dross goss from my favourite tabloid. Yesterday, for understandable reasons, a very relevant article caught my eye. According to a study, it says gazing at gorgeous pictures of cake can help you lose weight. Could it be true?

Certainly, cake-lovin' senses are taken care of in my daily job - sight and smell, and the whizz of the whisk covers sound as well. But does the sight of a slice of creamy, wobbly cheesecake make me want to eat it less? No way. The daily battle continues...

Does looking at pictures of cake make you crave or cave when you're trying to watch your calories?

Comments

Suzanne

19 August, 12:17PM
Suzanne

As a fellow Good Food member of staff, I understand your predicament. The only thing that works for me (and worked amazingly well in the run-up to my wedding) is to write down everything I eat every day. When you read back over a typical daily entry that says "pork belly, plum flapjack, 4 roast potatoes, slice cheesecake and 4 chocolate truffles" - and all that before 12 noon - it makes being good a whole lot easier. You basically shame yourself into trimness.

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Girl Flower

19 August, 1:42PM
Girl Flower

My wedding day is in just over 6 weeks and like Suzanne I would like to lose a little weight - or at the very least not gain any more! I think looking at pictures of food makes me more hungry not less! My problem is that I am on this website daily, I watch the GoodFood Channel at home and read the BBC Good Food Magazine.. After all that 'foodie input' I want to eat anything and everything!

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Becks

19 August, 1:55PM
Becks

I feel your pain. In this current job, I not only make all the food but am responsible for tasting all the products that come in too. Double whammy of big fat cellulitey backside... There's no hope at the moment either with the festive season fully upon us in magazine world. As the old nursery rhyme goes 'Christmas is coming, the food team's getting fat...'

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Vic

19 August, 1:55PM
Vic

Fancy some cheesecake?

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undividual

19 August, 2:07PM
undividual

Controversially, I don't actually like cake, and yet, like most people, find pictures of it irrestistable... So I sort of get best of both worlds, can enjoy salivating over gorgeous looking pictures of cake, but know that if I actually ate it, I wouldn't especially enjoy it. Just don't show me pictures of nachos or pie. Because them, I will eat. :D

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Andrea

19 August, 2:17PM
Andrea

Sure enough, as Vic has kindly(!) reminded me, two wibbly wobbly cheesecakes came out of the kitchen, and now there's ice cream. On the hottest day of the year. Hrmph! I'm waivering!

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Miss Sharon Lynch

19 August, 2:25PM
Miss Sharon Lynch

I like this, indeed, almost lost two stone. Red Velvet cake was my passion, a curse. It helps if you don't take your purse with you. My subsequent bakery banning, aye, from the pseudonymed 'A Brimmed Brig, Hunky', left loitering without intent, in contempt, Of their waiting customers, imagine.

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Chris Brack

19 August, 4:02PM
Chris Brack

I demand cake........cake and wine.....

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Belit

20 August, 12:39PM
Belit

I often like the pictures more than the eating, actually. I don't often get sweets that I find absolutely irresistible. My office challenge is usually that when someone has made the effort to bring in a homemade cake for everyone to share it's not nice to refuse, even though I'd happily give it a miss.

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miniminx

20 August, 1:32PM
miniminx

actually, i find that imagining yourself eating the cake works better than just looking at a picture....this might make me completely bonkers...but usually if i'm really craving something i just think 'right, i'll have that when i get home' and think about how and when i'll eat it. and honest to god, 9 times out of 10 by the time i get home i will have forgotten all about it and have something 'good' instead. this only works on a time delay of course - if i'm five minutes from home, then i really will cave in reality!!

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Lollipop

20 August, 6:51PM
Lollipop

this did not work for me at all, especially as i had just made Angela Nilsen's blackberryand apple loaf which was cooling in the tin...how could i not try it.............

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Nicola

21 August, 8:28AM
Nicola

MMMmmmmmm.....cake! I love cake. Big cakes, small cakes, cheese cakes, fruit cakes, cup cakes, muffins, scones, biscuits, flapjacks, brownies. Looking at, thinking about, making, talking about, reading about, smelling, but best of all eating! Everyone knows that I'll make a cake with the lamest of excuses (i.e. I had to do something with all those plums!). So in conclusion I would say no. Looking at pictures of cakes would not make me lose weight! i just have to eat a slice (or two) of it!

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Italiana

29 August, 6:21PM
Italiana

I know what you all mean....minutes on the lips but a lifetime to shift off those hips... I recently made the Blueberry Sour Cream cake, it was absolutely delicious and loved by all who shared it with me. Yes I felt bad...but what made it less guilty was the fact that this cake was packed with blueberries which are rich in antioxidants....which are good for you arent they not?

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lili

26 October, 8:46AM
lili

Wow, my <a href="http://www.mytobling.com/"><strong>ugg boots</strong></a> will not be coming off now! Iâve had them on for 12hrs strait and I do not want to take them off. Thanks for everything, well worth the wait.

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