Frog And Toad: Cookies

Recently, I bought my daughters a series of Frog and Toad books. I read a little from them almost every day for them, which they love. Yesterday, we read from Frog and Toad Together, and found a short story entitled Cookies. I found the reading both entertaining and somewhat enlightening. And so, I thought I would share it with you. Frog and Toad Together: Cookies by Arnold Lobel.

Ok, so I can't write out the entire story, but I will give you a quick summary. So Toad made a bunch of cookies, and invited Frog over to partake in them. When Frog arrived, they began to stuff their faces. At some point, Frog decides that they have had far too many cookies, and shouldn't eat anymore, so they eat a few more.

Frog the wraps up all the cookies in a box and puts them up. Then they eat some more. So Frog tries to hide them somewhere else, and then they eat more. Finally, Frog takes all the cookies outside, calls in some birds, and feeds them all of the cookies.

Toad mourns the loss of the cookies, saying that they are all gone. And Frog agrees, but comforts him that they have lots of willpower! Toad tells Frog that he can keep the willpower, he is going to go home and bake a cake.

The Lesson

Oh Frog and Toad, why must you be so instructive! I have learned many a lesson from them since reading this short story.

How many times have I cleared out the cupboards of my kitchen, tossing out any and all junk,

only to go out to the store later and buy more?

How many times have you done it? Come one now, 'fess up. If you are like me, you'd rather not admit any particular number, so let us just leave it at 'more than once?' It does us no good to clear out the cupboards, if we are only going to fill them again with junk. It does no good for us to lose weight, and work hard to exercise and eat right, if after some event or date, etc, we pile on the pounds again. When we lose weight and get healthy for some outside motive, we will never succeed. We might make some marginal progress for a short time, but it is not a lasting change that we are choosing. This is why fad diets are so popular, people want a quick fix. Unfortunately, quick fixes are not lasting fixes, and therefore are not good roads to take to permanent change.

If you really want to be fit forever, you have to live fit for forever. You have to choose the road that we all know, and yet avoid. Burn more calories than you consume, and exercise regularly. Most of your diet should come from vegetables, some whole grains, some meat, and some dairy. It's your basic food pyramid.

But why do we avoid that road? Because it is HARD. And who wants to choose the hard one, when so many easy roads beckon us, with taunts of "instant results," "lose 10 pounds in 10 days!" etc. But as we all know, "Easy Street," is nothing but a "Dead End."

The other thing I noticed was Frog's declaration that all they needed was "Will Power!" Believe me, if all we needed was will power, there would not be so many fat people in this country. Very few fat people want to be fat. They say they don't want to be fat, they say they desperately want to be fit/thin/healthy/etc. But wanting it, trying really hard is not enough. (Random Star Wars quote of the day) "Do or do not, there is no try."

What that means is that you can try all you want, but really, the words "I will try" are just cop-outs, What you are really saying is "I'm going to give you every indication that I am working on this, and then when it doesn't work, I can say, well I tried." Trying won't get you anywhere, because until you DO it, you haven't succeeded. You can TRY to quit smoking, but until you DO quit smoking, you are still a smoker. I believe it is the same with getting healthy. You can TRY to lose weight, you can TRY to exercise, you can TRY to eat healthier, but until you DO, you will remain fat.  And that is why will power won't get you anywhere. Will power is based on trying, not on doing.