Met-zmerized

I know what you’re thinking. “She’s going to say something about it being November already.” But of course I will. Welcome to November. November the month of the Movember, Remembrance Day, Christmas parades, the hunt for warm mittens and days of overcast skies. And next you’re going to ask, “What have you been doing?” Glad you asked.

For those of you who do follow me, I didn’t get around to moving my office from the big room to the small room. Nope, not at all. However, I have been watching the Kansas City Royals tango with the New York Mets. It seemed like a better way to spend my time than moving bookcases and equipment from one part of the house to the other. For those of you who are all about the baseball stats, I’ve probably watched 55 per cent more baseball in the past month than I’ve watched in my entire life. The funny thing is, I didn’t actually favour one team over the other. And, is that it?

Nope. I am celebrating my fifth year of working out and getting my life back on the healthy track. Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ve already heard about my crusade to get fit and put the brakes on my fear of food. The truth of the matter is, I will always be afraid of food. It’s likely many of you have the same issue. I was raised by a great mom who believed in three square meals a day. All of those meals were home-cooked. We rarely ate processed foods, including breakfast cereal. I don’t remember seeing potato chips in our house until my parents celebrated their 15th anniversary with a block party, and you can bet my mom didn’t supply the chips. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t deprived. Far from it. Mom was an excellent baker and a great cook. The problem, for me, was my mom had an impressive list of foods that were good for you and an equally impressive list of foods that were not good for you. Actually, the second list was of foods that made a person fat. By the time I was 15, I had adopted her lists as my own. Whenever someone offered something from the second list—the fat food list—I felt guilty for accepting it and felt even worse if I happened to like it. Ah, potato chips, processed lunch meat, cheese slices, hotdogs, white bread and store-bought cookies. How did I secretly love thee and fear thee. Let me count the salty, sugary ways.

Don’t get me wrong, my fear of food wasn’t my mom’s doing. She did what we all strive to do for our families these days. She bought local produce. She shopped at a local butcher shop. We ate whole grain breads. The cookies, squares and pies came from our kitchen. I developed a taste for the forbidden fruits when I turned into a teenager. The cafeteria in the high school was awash with junk food. We always had a packed lunch, but by grade nine I was dumping the good food into the big trash bin by the cafeteria door and making a beeline for the fries with gravy and the Hostess cupcakes. But I was a skinny kid, then. My body metabolized all the junk rather efficiently. Weight didn’t become a problem until I moved into the work force and sat on my derriere for eight hours a day. Mom wasn’t packing my lunch anymore, and thrice-weekly PhysEd classes were no more. The junk food continued along with the wacky diets that encouraged the fear of certain foods. To make a long story short, I’ll probably always have a little voice in my head telling me to fear food—good or bad. But I’m working on it.

These days, I try to do my mom proud. I stock the fridge and pantry with local produce, lean protein choices and complex, high-fibre carbohydrates. But, oh those ballgames! Who watches the Mets get trounced by the Royals while munching on rice cakes, I ask you? Thank goodness the baseball is done for the season.

How about those Maple Leafs, eh?

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca