Datebook: Thursday, January 4, 2007

Editor's Note: My apologies for not posting this Mombo on time. Mombo's blog will return to its regular schedule of Monday/Thursday posts starting January 8th.

Some of the problems with the day after New Year’s Day-- what about all of that food that is still sitting in the refrigerator and in the cookie jar?

We still have a vat-like quantity of eggnog and more cookies than the Keebler elves could make without violating elfin labor laws. Additionally, the holiday chocolates haven’t depleted much—okay I ate most of the miniature Mr. Goodbars in those festive gold wrappers but I was just trying to do my part.

I still have half of a ham left over from the open house and a quart of sweet potatoes. I know, the orange spuds are history but my mother keeps trying to talk to me about recycling the ham. Apparently there are 480 ways you can use a ham remnant and/or bone to create soup or stew culinary treats, but unfortunately most of these Betty Crocker cooking cards also have some large type of bean that needs to be inserted into the pot. I still have nightmares about wax beans and I won’t bore you with the details except to say that same mother did hold out longer than a seven-year girl who refused to put another mushy, sour, beige seed in her mouth.

There are still vials of olives and containers of hummus, cartons of crackers, wedges of brie, and a few packages of dinner rolls.

I have to purge the pantry of these morsels of temptation.

Yes, I know I mentioned that Bob Greene said you only need to increase your activity for the first phase but I only read to page 10. On the next page he actually instructed those diet-savvy followers to only buy foods with less than 4 grams of sugar. Except for the ham bone this would eliminate my entire larder.

I thought I would focus on breakfast and went to the store with this less than 4 grams of sugar and more than 4 grams of fiber criteria. A bit of sticker shock resulted. No more Captain Crunch or Frosted Cheerios. X-nay on the Coco-Puffs.

In fact, the only cereals I could find with this criterion were Fiber One, which looks like petrified macaroni noodles, and Total, which looks like the poor desert relatives of Corn Flakes.

I tried to eat the Fiber One this morning. I put it in a bowl where it bounced out like Tigger on a Mountain Dew. When I tried to pour milk on it, it repelled it as if I had doused it in Rain-X.

I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to start “Eating for Life” until after Nationals but my daughter came to visit for 12 hours over the weekend and dared to mention that she might have gained a “pound over the holidays”.

A pound.

Really.

A pound to someone in my weight class is much like spotting a penny on the ground in the parking lot. I’m not going to stoop and pick it up and add it to my growing wealth and quest for economic stability. It would be lost at sea so to speak.

A pound to me is one fruit drink, two Hershey kisses, or three macadamia cookies. Please, the list is endless but never in my life have I worried that I put on ONE pound.

I looked at her size zero body with buns of steel and felt a momentary comprehension of the concept of a love/hate relationship.

This intensified when her brother asked what my New Year resolutions would be.

“Well, this year I am really going to eat healthier and get in better shape.”

“ “.

That was what I got. Nothing. Silence. No comment. No raised eyebrows or smirks.

In fact, they didn’t even look at me. They looked at each other with perfectly blank expressions, like they were standing for inspection at the Naval academy or something. And yet I knew they were sending each other secret decoder messages.

“Uh-Oh, not again. May-Day, May-Day.”

I could have held them there for hours, like my mother held me over that plate of wax beans, but they would have held out, collapsing hours later on the stairs in laughter once out of my sight.

So as a mother, it is my duty to prove them wrong and wipe off those smirks that were not on their faces.

I have two and half weeks to lose a few pounds, realistically realizing I may re-gain a few at Nationals-- from nervous tension and my annual need of Cosmopolitans between rounds, I mean between events.

Or maybe I’ll be lucky like my daughter and only gain back a pound.

I’ll use the luggage scale at the airport on the trip home to confirm. I’m sure she won’t be embarrassed.

Mombo