#1 Eat the donut!

My only qualification is that I have raised six children who have turned out to be pretty decent human beings

     I see you, twenty-something mom. Your hand is hovering over the donut. Eat it! Take it from me, your metabolism is never going to be this good again. Don’t deny yourself while at your peak – there will be plenty of time to deny yourself of all junk food in the future. Eat the donut and savor every bite. Eat it for me. I remember those days with fondness.

     Around age forty-five, a ‘metabolistic’ switch flips inside you and the same food you eat everyday suddenly starts to make you put on weight! You are not eating more – your body has just betrayed you! Now, to stay at your preferred weight, you have to eat less and less and less. It stinks!

     This makes me sound like a foodie. I’m not. Long ago my husband and I realized that we were ‘eat-to-live’ type people rather than ‘live-to-eat’ types. (If there was a pill that tasted decent and satisfied you nutritionally and emotionally, we would be on board.) But I just hate feeling hungry. Hate it! I have managed to revamp my diet to reduce my calorie intake in a way that I don’t suffer from hunger but it is certainly not the way I used to eat.

     I have long contemplated at what age I can allow myself to go back to eating what I want. Not over-eating, just eating, without always worrying about the scales. Some years ago, I thought 55 sounded good. But I will reach that this year and I am not quite ready to give up caring – you can call it vanity – I’ll call it a healthy pride in my appearance, or to give up my wardrobe that I am very fond of. I like shopping for clothes just like most women, but to outgrow all my clothes at once would be a blow.

     So my new goalpost is age 60. Then I will eat what I want when I am hungry. But for now, I will watch what I eat, exercise regularly and dream of donuts. Eat it girl!

Psalm 78: 25

'Man did eat angels food:he sent them meat to the full'