A Convenient Theory

Ahhh, February. One of the most challenging months of the year, at least for me. Busy at work with multiple celebrations - Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year's, the 100th day of school and half birthday celebrations for all the kids with August birthdays, of which we have 7 this year, busy with the end of Caitlin's school basketball season, and this year busy with my mom recovering from hip replacement surgery (she is doing well, the PT's have described her progress as "stellar". Usually John and I (well mosty John) get all our tax stuff organized and done.
But even beyond that, February provides some personal challenges for me. It is a month of perverse timing. A month when the glow of last summer's tan has long since flaked off, and hair is blah and static-y. A month where because of the hours spent sitting on the bleacher's at Caitlin's games, or on the couch watching the Carolina games instead of in the gym, my muscle tone is the lowest of the year. It never fails that just when I have decided that it really is time to get exercise back into a routine, that maybe now is the time to actually open the book about the South Beach diet, the Girl Scout cookies arrive. All-Abouts, Trefoils, Samoas ---- and Thin Mints are delivered and their bright array of colorful boxes beckon to me from my counter. It seemed like a such a good idea when I ordered them back in January. Something to look forward after the letdown of after-Christmas, something to brighten midwinter blues. I try not to look but I can't help taking a quick peek at the nutrition labels. Surely they are wrong - there is no way that 2 little Samoa's can contain 8 grams of fat! For Pete's sake, they even have a hole in the middle. It must be a typo, my mind hungrily rationalizes. But the thin mints are my real weakness. And at least with the thin mints you can have 4 and it is only 7 grams of fat. So, if I leave the Samoa's for Caitlin (who in a disgusting show of self-discipline will have only one each day with her lunch) I will be making the healthier choice of just binging on the lower fat thin mints. I am being so good! Of course I have bought more boxes of thin mints, but I have a theory. A convenient theory, but a theory nevertheless. If you eat enough thin mints at one sitting you don't really absorb all of the grams of fat. They max out after, say, 8 cookies. Kind of like vitamin C. You can take a ton of it but your body only uses a certain amount and the rest is flushed harmlessly out of your system. And it really does seem like the mints are conveniently packaged in single-serving wrappers. Two servings to a box. (I didn't peek long enough to see that the label claims there are 9 servings in a box). So I happily sit down with my roll of thin mints and a glass of milk to look at the mail. And it never fails. There, staring up at me with my winter-dull hair and pasty skin speckled with cookie crumbs, will be some scantily clad waif of a model with an exotic name like Yamilla or Daniela or Fernanda wearing a piece of yarn with a button or two "covering" strategic areas of their golden nubile bodies, on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. This is usually disturbing enough to send me to the kitchen to fetch another roll of thin mints. But now I will feel guilty about it. In a quest to prevent John from seeing the magazine (after all, I don't want him to realize there is a little bit of a schism between how I look and how those models look!) I have been known to rip off the cover,or hide the magazine at least until I can apply some self-tanner. But the best solution I ever had to deal with it was to past a photo of myself wearing a bikini and taken on the last day of a college trip to St. Thomas, over the girl on the cover. I don't know if John noticed, but it made me feel better. And now that I am a bit more, shall we say mature, I barely even notice when the magazine arrives. And I don't feel as guilty about enjoying the Thin Mints. Another theory I have is that the faster you finish off the boxes the less impact they will have on your body. In fact, I think they are good for my mental health. My brain at least gets a good workout from thinking up all the ways to rationalize eating a couple of boxes of thin mints, and maybe even a samoa or two. Still, this year I think I will let John get the mail, and I will eat my cookies in front of a good book.