Grown Up Snow Day

The best days ever are the ones were you are given a pass from all responsibilities and the bonus is being told the day before so you can sleep in. That was the gift given to us last night that the impending storm meant calling off school well before bed so I did not set my alarm and wake up only to find out that I could have slept in.

It has been a few years since we have had any real snow here in Durham.  I know this because this is the first time that Shay Shay has seen snow.  It was the nice fluffy kind, not covered by a layer of ice so she was able to run and bound in it, with the flakes sticking to her face.  When she realized she had to do her business in it I was happy not to have the tough coating layer so that the pee did not run downhill and possibly run into her other paws.

Carter got to sleep in too, which makes a teenager very happy.  All my real work was canceled and my favorite activity of the week, Mah Jongg was moved to my friend Christy’s house where mothers with kids were able to come and let their kids go sledding while we traded bams, crack and dots, shared a yummy lunch and whiled away our day of play.

I love a guilt free day off.  Hey it’s not my fault that it snowed and so sorry you had to cancel some important meetings, but what are we to do?  Although it was not much snow we just don’t have the equipment here in the south to handle even the thinnest layer of ice, which is what happens when the snow gets packed down and melts just a little bit.

Hooray for permission to play all day.  It is only really fin when everyone else is off too.  I don’t think I need everyday to be a free day, but I was ready for this one.  Luckily it was not so much snow that we are going to be stuck inside for days on end, so I will be ready for school to start back up tomorrow with maybe a delay so the icy roads can thaw a little.  Two days in a row will start to feel decadent and I am just too Presbyterian for that much lazing around.

All this sleeping in and full day of Mah Jongg has kept me from my treadmill desk.  Now it may be a snow day but I have no excuse not to get my steps in so I must walk away for the rest of the evening in the warmth of my cozy office.  Just because there is snow I don’t get a pass on getting my steps.  At least I did sleep in.

Programmed to Eat

When we first got our dog Shay Shay as a nine-week old puppy we were told to give her a treat after every successful visit outdoors to potty.  This training obviously worked because she never once had an accident inside.  I am sure that at sometime we should have stopped giving her the tiny square of freeze dried liver she loves the most every time she comes in from the outside, but here we are more than two years later still treating her after every visit to the great big potty that is the outdoors.

I think sometimes she asks to go out just to be able to come back in and have a treat.

She is a fairly thin dog who does not eat a huge amount of dog food, so I guess keeping up the treating is not too terrible for her.

I got to thinking about the expectation for getting food and wondering if she is actually hungry or just in the habit of getting a nibble no matter what.  I am a human who is equally programmed to eat.  I can’t tell you the last time I missed a meal — Breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyday, no mater what.

I know that my parents did the right thing by feeding me regularly as a baby and young child.  Do I think that has programmed me to expect food at those three meals at the very least? Meals are not the only times I eat.  I wonder if I had not been so programmed to expect food at such regular times that I might have learned to eat only when I was hungry?

If left to my own devices I might actually eat more often than the three meals and one snack that is part of my regular routine.  What if I were given a favorite food every time I performed some mundane task like clean out the dishwasher.  I might never do anything else.

Not eating can be just as much of a problem as eating too much — both are unhealthy.  I am much too old to be deprogrammed from three meals a day now.  Perhaps five little snacks would be better for me, or just two good meals.  I will never know.

What I do know is that my dog is very happy getting a liver treat when she comes back inside the house.  I am not about to be the one who is going to stop her routine as long as she continues to be a good dog and always do her business outside.

As for myself since I am going to continue sitting down to eat at the same times everyday I am going to do my best to think about every bite and decide if I am done before my plate is clean.  Just another ingrained habit — damn those starving children in China.

Potential Squirrel Obesity

Fat people are not the only beings that are addicted to food.  Yesterday while walking my sweet labradoodle Shay Shay I witnessed proof that animals too will risk life and limb for food.  No, my dog did not run out into the street to get a meaty bone.  But a squirrel who had found a well aged acorn stood her ground to enjoy eating it a mere two feet from me with a squirrel stalking dog pulling at her leash trying to play with her.

Now this squirrel was not oblivious to our existence.  She stared at the two of us much larger and well-fed beings down while she systematically peeled away the tough covering of the nut to enjoy the tender meat.  Shay jumped up and down on her hind legs trying to gain a few feet so she could grab the furry creature while it just sat there, one eye on Shay one on her food.  Once she had consumed her meal she scurried up the trunk of the pin oak tree she was standing besides.

My dog was none to happy that I did not give her enough rope to grab that lazy ass squirrel while she had a chance, I was more amazed that the wild animal would risk certain death over one small nut.  She was not a skinny squirrel so I am sure this meal was not her life saving or starve to death moment.  Perhaps her eye contact with sweet Shay made her think that she was not really in harms way, but she would be wrong since Shay would certainly want to squeeze her tightly until she found and ripped out her squeaker.

Is being addicted to food what has kept this squirrel alive or has she been tempting fate?  We all have heard of the fight or flight reflex but maybe the more important one is the eat or flight?  I think this animal standing right next to a tree that she could use as a safe harbor could have taken the nut in her mouth up and out of our way very easily.  Or just dropped the food and take cover and come back and recover her prize later.  Have squirrels grown too familiar with both man and beast and feel no fear for their lives or has dining become an event they are not willing to give up?

I am sure that I have done this squirrel a great disservice by holding my dog back on her leash.  She certainly is on the way to rodent obesity. I decided that if I were to only eat in a place that I was in constant danger I might feel less addicted to food.  Next time you see me with a cookie in my hand feel free to attack me.  I don’t ever want to risk my life for food, especially if it is fattening.

Grocery Store Shrinks

If you are an American you probably already know that there are hundreds of thousands of grocery store psychologists.  These are not people who have a couch set up in a grocery store asking you how you feel about your childhood.  No, these are the people who systematically plan out how to advertise, display and partner foods so that you unknowingly are drawn to buying things you never intended too.  Food manufactures also employ these same types of people to design packaging that scream, “You have got to buy me.”

This is not a purely American phenomenon.  I have been to grocery stores in lots of countries and they all are employing the same tricks.  Things like the highest profit margin items at eye level and red and yellow packaging.

Since January is national “the whole country is on a diet month,” until the Super Bowl, the second highest eating day after Thanksgiving, stores are running lots of promotions on diet foods.  Special K must make half of their annual sales in the month of January.  Come February people are sick of sugar-free dry flakes and go back to sugar pops.

Nothing in a major grocery store is left up to chance.  Those Psychologist are getting paid big bucks to design every aisle, end cap and store flyer to maximize store sales.  Today, while I was at the Harris Teeter I saw one of my favorite store gimmick pairings I have ever seen.  In the soda aisle under the diet Coke display hung a shelf basket full of Hershey bars.

Now I don’t drink soda, but I don’t usually think of a cola and a chocolate bar being the best taste combination, not like chocolate and peanut butter or Hersheys, marshmallows and graham crackers, classics!  I know exactly what the thinking was behind this; it’s diet month, everyone is going to buy diet soda, but it’s week three and their resolve is getting weak, it’s the perfect time to sabotage their diet with a chocolate bar.  Of course the person buying it can justify buying the candy since they are having a diet soda.  Damn those grocery store shrinks.  How are normal, non-advanced degreed humans supposed to withstand such wicked tricks?

The stores have come up with the answer to this, Internet grocery shopping.  My Harris Teeter has a service where you can order your groceries on-line, a store clerk shops the store with your list and bags them and you just pull up to the front of the store and they put the groceries in your car.  The store charges some fee for this, like say $5 and you can avoid all their tricks to get you to buy stuff you never needed.  The store makes money on the fee so it works out the same for them.  I’m waiting to see what those store Psychologists are going to do to entice us when we don’t even walk in the store.  Perhaps the person bringing the bags out is going to have donuts and cookies hanging in baskets around their neck.

Did You Weigh Yourself Today?

I have a friend who worked hard to lose weight last year.  She did a great job eating salmon with lemon and spinach at lunch until she got to her goal weight.  Today she confessed that she got on the scale this morning for the first time since October and had gained six pounds.  When she did the calculations it worked out to just about one glass of wine and half a cookie extra each day in those three months to gain six pounds.

One glass of wine and half a cookie does not seem like much but if she had just 230 extra calories everyday all year she would gain twenty four pounds in a year.  Now how does that wine and cookie sound?

I like to get on the scale every morning.  I know there are people who say they only do it once a week or once a year at their physical exam, but I need a daily reminder so that I don’t have that extra 230 calories for a couple of days in a row.

If I was not very good the day before not getting on the scale is not going to make it disappear. Accountability to myself means that I have to face the music, and dealing with it right away rather than three months later is much easier.  If I ate 400 calories more than I should yesterday I can eat 200 fewer for the next two days and at least get back to a zero sum game.  One pound gained is 3,500 calories more than you needed.  That is fairly easy to do.  3,500 less than you need is really hard.

That same accountability is what I need for exercise.  That is why keeping count of my steps has been a huge boon for me.  Carter wanted to go horse back riding today.  I said I would take her and get my steps in then.  I also brought Shay Shay for a good walk for her.  Of course it started raining as soon as we got to the barn.  Carter said I could sit in the car, but she did not understand this was the allotted time in my day to get my steps.  Since I am not a runner walking 10,000 steps takes some time.  Time is a luxury.

Shay and I circled the farm traipsing through horse you-know-what in the rain.  When we both looked like wet rats covered in poop we went to the car and stripped down. Carter volunteered to give Shay a bath when we got home which seemed like a fair trade. Tomorrow I am going to have to do a through cleaning of the inside of my car.

Just like calories in, walking, working out or other exercise is already calculated in my day.  Without working some of the calories off, and I know that my totally efficient body does not work off half as much as the exercise machines predict it is burning, I could easily stop losing and start gaining.  Those tiny amounts add up quickly.

If your resolution is to get in better shape, take note of how hard it is to get those pounds off.  The worst thing is to lose them only to find them again, soon and quickly.  Trust me on this, I am an expert and I would love to save you the yoyo heartache.