Hunger pangs

The new year is here and I vow to live a healthier life. No. Really. Last year I ate anything I wanted because I was so relieved I could taste. Chemo clouds taste buds. This year I must watch what I put into my mouth. Considering. Some "foods" could even be dangerous for me.

I have a bunch of candy-loving colleagues. But we are all going to do better. In mid-month, my fellow employees and I are going to begin studying the book, Your Whole Life, ("Don't think thin, think whole . . .") and learn how to live healthily and happily. Certainly we can do both.

I know a big cookie or giant candy bar can be happiness food. But not healthy. A big slab of char-broiled red meat makes me happy, but not healthy. Cheese makes me dance with delight. Wine makes me dance, period. But I'm getting old. And I gotta watch what I put in my mouth. It slides straight down to my hips and thighs. I know living right is about more than just my weight and gait (placing one foot in front of the other instead of lumbering side to side). "Don't think thin, think whole..."

I have been going to the gym since 1993, so I'm doing my exercises. But I can't pop a miniature Three Musketeers bar in my mouth when my brain starts crying, "Chocolate. Chocolate!" And when I'm hungry, I need to reach for something healthy (what!?), not sugary, or cheesy, or wine-y.

I just read an article on Cafe about breaking bad habits. It takes 28 days. (That seems like a long time to crave a Three Musketeers.) I read somewhere else, and I can't remember where, that you just have to have hunger pangs for awhile. Three days maybe. Before your stomach figures out it is not getting food everytime it screams for it.

It is now time to climb into bed and I want food. My head hurts 'cause I feel hungry. But I must think of all the starving children in China. And Sudan. And Darfur. And India, And East Tennessee and downtown Chicago. And be glad I have a bed. A refrigerator. A house. And wait three days until the hunger pangs subside.