Recalculating. Make a legal U-Turn.


So, when I was in high school, I was in a competitive problem solving organization called Odyssey of the Mind.  Our sponsor, a teacher who I still consider a friend and mentor twenty years later, used to urge us out of dead ends by saying, “Let’s see if we can try it another way…”

Which is the thought that I had upon stepping on the scale this afternoon after a month’s hiatus.  A month in which I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  In quantities that even charitably, we could call obscene.

Now, no regrets on the month of gastro-debauchery.  I  ate amazing ice cream.  I drank coffee with actual cream.  I drank beer. I ate toast. With BUTTER.  I had my first lobster roll.  One of the nicest people I know prepared a meal (for me!) and it was incredible, and tremendous, and unforgettable (I haven't had someone plan and prepare a meal with me in mind in...a long time - I almost cried).  And we all smelled like meat and wood smoke for the rest of the day.    

Of course, I notice that I’m not as energetic as I’d like to be.  And all that travel has made my clothes shrink a little (uh…), and I’m pretty sure I caught a colleague eyeballing me today while playing that old familiar game “Pregnant or Fat?”*  I also notice that for the past week, my primary food group has been beige.  And my skin is breaking out with a vengeance usually reserved for teenagers who have an important social event.

So, let’s see if we can try another way.

One of my girlfriends and I are “in training” for a Warrior Dash at the end of next month.  She sent me the regimen today – nowhere in it does it mention eating doughnuts for breakfast (which I did at the Houston Airport at 6AM today – well technically, a doughnut and a bearclaw**).  I do need to start doing some strength work, throw on my running shoes and beat feet. 

I mean, let’s face it – I didn’t fall from the skinny branch of the family tree.  If you look at photos, you can pick out the gene pool from whence I emerged.  

But I can control my portions, eat less beige food and move more.  This I can do.



And I should.

Because if all you ever eat is lobster rolls, they cease to be special.

Right?

I don't think I could ever get jaded about lobster.



*Emphatically, not pregnant. So...fat, then?  Yes.

**And a sausage biscuit.  Dammit, leave me alone.  I'd had four hours sleep...

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