The real irony of life experience is that when you are young and shapely, you are ignorant and naïve. As you age and gain wisdom, the firm body disappears, ever so slowly, until you find yourself taking all the mirrors in your house to Goodwill.
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With thoughts of spring dancing in our winter-laden heads, my sister and I have been bouncing around ideas for loosing weight in preparation for shorts and bathing suit season. Living on a farm, I prefer working outside to stay fit and shed the winter pounds gained from long-bouts of cabin fever during our cold, snowy Iowa winters. My sister, who is eight years my junior, remarked on how her body seems to “go to pot” the older she gets. She said her daughter even informed her one day, quite manner-of-factly, that she had a big tummy and behind. Not at all amused, my sister told her that wasn’t very nice and wondered if perhaps those sit-ups she quit doing had been working after all. We agreed there must be such a thing as too much honesty.
Being the eldest, I decided to share some wisdom with her I’d given my three sons several years ago. I told them there are two things in life that, as boys and men, you must never do:
(1) Hit a girl, and
(2) Tell a girl she’s fat.
I stressed that doing either will result in much pain and suffering. Guess they must have listened because I’m pretty sure they’ve never hit a girl and they don’t use the “F” word (fat). My sister said I totally made her laugh with that one and vowed to have the same talk with her kids.
She brought up an interesting point: maybe the wisdom we gain from knowing what’s inside a person is what counts is actually what makes us heavy. I always assumed a discussion or person labeled as heavy was sarcasm, but maybe it’s meant literally. If this is true, it could explain why it gets harder to loose weight as you age.
On the whole, hearty people are more jovial than their frail counterparts. Does that mean it’s more important to be happy and loved than being thin? Even though that sounds a bit like a promotion for a fast-food commercial, shouldn’t our daily activities make us enjoy every day of our life to its fullest? Of course, the same could be said about people obsessed with eating and not able to do the things they want in life because their body restricts them.
Thinking about my dad’s constant warnings about weight gain and our society’s hyper-obsession with body fat and body mass index weighs heavily on my mind and usually makes me want to eat my favorite foods just to feel good. I struggle to find activities that are as comforting as chocolate chip cookie dough or cinnamon rolls. Food involves so many of our senses and makes eating a very intoxicating experience.
For me, the most memorable smell is homemade cinnamon rolls. The aroma reminds me of baking these goodies with my grandmother helping her roll out the dough, sprinkle on the cinnamon/sugar mixture, roll them up in a long tube, and slice them into sections with dental floss. My dad also used to take me to Benny’s diner in my hometown as a child. The diner is gone, but I still remember the smell of those fresh, hot, square-shaped Benny Rolls with the pat of butter on top. We would smear the butter all over the melted icing and longingly savor each morsel.
Another food memory reminds me of making cookie dough with my sister when we were girls. We’d make the dough and just before baking the cookies, we would take several tastes. Some times, we would run out of time and store the batter in the fridge to make the cookies later. Of course, we would often taste the dough again and our dad would ask if we were ever going to actually BAKE the cookies.
This memory prompted me to ask my sister during our weighty discussion if she would give up cookies forever to be skinny. She said maybe, but then asked if that meant giving up cookie dough too. We had a good laugh and decided having a to-die-for body was not worth living without cookie dough. And in spite of my father’s objections, I think it’s OK to make cookie dough and never get any baked cookies out of the batch. I know my boys agree because nothing makes them come running faster than the sound of the mixer switching off when I’m making a batch of cookies.
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