I received some good news yesterday (the sales of Not Another New Year’s are going strong and it made the USA Today bestseller list for the second week in a row) along with the encouragement to “go celebrate!”
Why is it that the first thing I think of celebrating with is food?
Truly, that’s what I did. My mind leaped to, “Hmm…okay, what should I have to eat?” What’s up with that? Is it normal to think a celebration=cookies, a candy bar, a nice bottle of wine and those yummy cheese squares I like so much?
So to put off deciding how to rejoice, I dragged on the tight jeans (did they ever fit not-so-snugly around the waist? I’m thinking not.) and went to Costco for dog food. I bought a new Stephanie Plum book and the lastest Traveling Pants book. Hah! There’s a celebration for an avid reader like me. Shouldn’t that be good enough?
Except later, my husband (aka Surfer Guy) brought me a glass of our usual (cheap) wine. And I had a few Cheez-its, which are not yummy cheese squares, but are at least the right shape. After I took care of the dinner dishes, I had a couple of dark chocolate-covered caramels left over from New Year’s. They don’t count if I was standing up while I ate them, right?
So I had some “bad” food. But the problem is…none of it was as satisfying as the foods I really wanted to celebrate with. And now I feel guilty for all the extra calories. I told all this to Tracy, the personal trainer, who responded “Get thee to the gym, girl!” adding the dreaded words, “Double cardio.” (That’s when you jack up your metabolism by doing some sort of cardio exercise for 30-50 minutes in the morning and in the afternoon.) But pina colada-sipping Cynthia kept it real by rolling her eyes and reminding all of us that “please, celebration is not adding an extra mile to your run.”
But am I the only one with this weird connection between happy news and eating? Chime in if you have any celebration rituals. Even if it’s making chocolate chip cookie dough and eating all the raw batter until it makes you sick (not that I’ve ever done that or anything.)
