Another new beginning

January 21, 2010

About six months ago I decided I wasn’t going to battle the bulge any more. I made up my mind to “beat the bulges.” Once and for all! I looked in the mirror and thought, “When on earth did this happen?” My husband, Bob, and I have always referred to it as “The Contented Cow Syndrome.” We became happily sedentary with very full tummies. Couple that with gravity and it isn’t so pretty.

To go alone with all that the last trip to the doctor’s office found us greeted by our darling, sweet doctor who put on his angry eyebrows to inform us that the latest blood test showed us inching up to the almost need to treat section of the chart. Our shoulders slumped and we shuffled out of the office to face a world without brownies and butter and Thrifty’s Ice Cream and...and...and... Woe is us, oh, woe is us.

So begins our journey, just like everyone else. How on earth are we going to do this and not cry ourselves to sleep at night. Well, me anyway, Bob just pretends nothing has happened. I try to analyze everything. Why do I eat like that, when am I hungry, what makes me eat, am I depressed? The questions swirl around in my brain like dry leaves on a fall wind. I write down my answers to all these powerful questions, pondering each one with care. Finally, I ask Bob the same questions, trying to get him to come to grips with his reasons for overeating.

“Sweetie, are you depressed?”
“No.”
“When do you think about eating?”
“When I’m awake.”
“Come on, why do you overeat?”
“Because it tastes sooooo good.”

My man isn’t very complicated. I knew it was up to me. I was going to get no help from him. In his defense, he will eat pretty much what I fix. I just had to learn to fill his plate and put only the extra vegetables on the table for seconds. I also know that if I’m going to make...let’s say...vegetarian lasagna I have to re-name it to...let’s say...layered cheese and vegetable noodle bake. He hears lasagna and dreams of my recipe with ten pounds of three cheeses and hamburger, etc, etc, and vegetarian lasagna is a huge disappointment to him. Brain tricks, that’s the key at our house.

We live way out of town in a fabulous canyon, well, way out for us city folk. It’s
seventeen miles from our front door to Costco. So, we don’t waste any left-overs, which, by the way, will now be referred to as “plan-overs.” I’m also a list maker. You can’t just drop everything and run to the store because you don’t have an ingredient.