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HALLOWEEN vs. YOUR SKINNY JEANS

Let me start by stating two facts:

  1. This is October
  1. I LOVE me some candy.

Normally, my grocery store visits consist of outer perimeter market shopping only because as you know from reading Peanut Butter and the Bride, below, I get into big trouble perusing isles. But how in the world are you supposed to skip one when it looks like this:

Although I haven’t been, I’m pretty sure heaven looks quite similar.

So let’s talk about a very popular word that people like to throw around effortlessly when “dieting” and that word is MODERATION. When people tell me they like to “enjoy things in moderation” I say (or rather think silently to myself) one of two things:

1: BULLSHIT!

2. What the Eff??!! HOW do you DO that?!!!

Now, there really are people out there that can do this “M” thing and well, it kinda pisses me off. My husband it one of these people. Before we were married, I went over to his house one evening, opened up the fridge and saw a bag of THESE staring at me:

REALLY?  I am supposed to just hang out and enjoy his company while these innocent snack size morsels from heaven whisper to me through the refrigerator walls?! Not in this lifetime….

Me: Um… Who’s are these?? (As if there was possibly a neighbor or alien that asked to borrow fridge space).

Jay: Mine, want one?

Me: (Silently to myself: ONE???! WHO IN THE EFF EATS JUST ONE??!! SURELY HE MEANT ONE BAG, RIGHT?) No thanks baby, I’m full from dinner. (YA, AS IF!)

Jay: Ok, well I am going to have one.

Me: ( Again silently: That A-hole can eat just one and then carry on with life knowing there are 62 more of them in the fridge?!!!) Enjoy, honey.

Now, although I do have a closet full of very accommodating denim (fat jeans, skinny jeans, really effing good day extra skinny jeans, after vacation jeans, too much salt jeans, period jeans, and jeans) I am a much happier person when the skinnies fit-sans muffin top to be exact.

Well, tis the month of candy dishes EVERYWHERE I GO, I thought a post about how to control the urge to splurge would be fitting this time of year, and a Google search of “Halloween candy moderation” led me to this joke, err, advice from a registered dietitian whose name I will leave out for my own safety:

“While candy is typically perceived as being low in nutritional value, scientific research has revealed that there are potential benefits associated with incorporating some types of sweet treats into ones diet.

Two specific examples are dark chocolate, which lowers cardiovascular disease and chewing gum, which helps with managing calorie intake.”

UMMMM DUHHHH HUHH WHAT?!! Not to go again with my number 1 and 2’s but….:

1. Who really eats only the .9823567 daily recommended serving of dark chocolate and….

2. Gum, really lady? If you know me, this is funny. If you don’t know me, don’t get to know me if I have recently indulged myself in a pack or ten of my favorite chewing heaven-aka flatulence hell-aka gum.

So, it may seem after reading my rants and rambles that I don’t really have any worthy advice or suggestions and you are right, I don’t. But- I will tell you what I do to not fall completely off my own wagon:

1. I tell my husband NO. If he wants to buy his itty bitty cutesy patootsie peanut butter chocolaty pumpkins, then he also better buy a lockbox to go with them.

2. I don’t have just one. If I dig into one candy dish, you can bet your bottom dollar I have just given myself unspoken permission to dig into ANY and ALL candy dishes until November 1, or whenever it is those things actually get put away!? How do people work with one on their desk anyway??? That is seriously an “Unsolved Mystery” in my book.

3. I buy candy for trick or treaters on October 31 so that I most likely will be stuck with boxes of these:

                         INSTEAD OF A BOWL FILLED WITH THIS:

4. And finally, the last kid to come to the house scores the entire rest of the red hots, or whatever other “less than stellar” candy I happen to end up with, because while it may not be my favorite-heck, it may not even be good, but if its candy and it’s in my house-it will end up in my mouth.

Here’s to hoping heaven is indeed one giant candy isle,

Laura

 

 

I Broke Up with My Wedding

You know that feeling of heartache after a breakup? Those deep, aching, agonizing feelings of sadness, hurt, loss, regret, shock, and emptiness? Well why in the world am I feeling these after I just GOT MARRIED!!??! Don’t get me wrong here-I said “I do” to the most amazing man on the planet, I just really didn’t expect the feelings that followed starting the moment we got into our getaway car at the end of the night.

You may wonder how I can relate my PWB (Post Wedding Blues-1 in every 10 women suffer from this according  to my obsessive googling on the subject) to the aftermath of a breakup, so let me take you back to where is all began:

I met My Wedding on November 27th of 2011 when Jason, who at the time was my boyfriend, got down on one knee and said those 4 words we long to hear as females since, I dunno-birth?! To be quite honest, I have always wanted to get married, but the older I got the more I thought maybe I would just be happier in a long-term serious relationship and remaining a Weintraub. But apparently Jason, again, knew me better than I knew myself because when he introduced me to My Wedding-the answer was yes, the connection was instant, and our journey (mine and My Wedding) began.

From November 27th-September 8th my thoughts were consumed by My Wedding. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, excited thoughts, anxious thoughts, cold feet thoughts, basically I had so many constant thoughts surrounding the upcoming event, it’s as though it was the only thing that existed in my world. As the big day was approaching, my married friends advised me of one thing: take it all in, the night goes by SO fast. While I am very grateful for this advice, and it is extremely accurate-I would have preferred hearing this truth: “Laura, your wedding is going to be the best day of your life. When it is over you are going to bawl your eyes out, you won’t want to take off your dress, no matter how uncomfortable it is, and when you do-you’ll bawl some more. Then you will hang your dress in the hallway and reach out to touch it every time you pass by as though to say hello, I miss you. Then you will wonder why you are acting like such a weirdo as you go downstairs and spot your dried out bouquet hanging from the living room chandelier and wonder what the appropriate amount of time is to leave it there. Could it stay there permanently? Surely my husband won’t mind, as he must be feeling these same feelings right? Not so much…

As it turns out, he had a wonderful time at our wedding! “Best day of my life” he said! So then WHY am I ready to cry over our day at any given moment, while he can just reflect on it with a very contented smile?! My guess is it has something to do with gender…

 Yes, I am crying here…. It was ALMOST over!!!

 

Anyway, today is our 1 week anniversary and I finally got the guts to pack up my dress and take it to the dry cleaners for (gasp!!!) preservation BECAUSE I WILL NEVER WEAR IT AGAIN PEOPLE!!!!?!!!!!

Ok, so actually it was my husband that packed and loaded the dress in the car…

I guess the moral of this story is: actually, I really don’t know-I just needed to get my feelings out somewhere before Jason starts wondering what in the hell he got himself into!! Off to do some energy work-thank goodness for this video, which just happens to be my mom’s!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E44bC8V3Ebo

Love, your lucky 1 out of 10,

Laura

 

 

Peanut Butter and the Bride

Hello Friends! I have finally taken my spoon out of a jar of peanut butter long enough to write a much over due newsletter. I also have some profound advice that I thought to be “share worthy” and that advice is: DON’T BUY PEANUT BUTTER A WEEK BEFORE YOUR WEDDING!!!!!!

Let me back up two days and set up the scenario for you-I am getting married on September 8th and as part of my plan to look and feel my best on that day, I decided to dedicate 30 days to intense workouts (including Bikram Yoga, or the Sweat Box, as my Maid of Honor very accurately describes it, but that is a whole other blog in itself) extremely clean eating, and apparently AN ENTIRE JAR OF FREAKIN’ PEANUT BUTTER!

So after 23 days of eating only the following foods:

Chicken

Eggs

Greek Yogurt

Vegetables

Oat Bran

Sweet Potatoes

Apples

Salmon

Raw Nuts

And drinking only water (and coffee, because life w/o coffee isn’t worth living, in my opinion), I ventured to the store and made TWO not so great decisions:

 

Now, let’s be honest-after 23 days of no bread, chocolate, bread, frozen yogurt, bread, licorice, bread, wine, bread, cheese, or bread (and yes, I realize 23 days is a very SHORT amount of time) but we are talking about a girl who would choose sitting down with an un-toasted loaf of Wonder Bread to a steak and lobster dinner at Fleming’s any day of the week.

Don’t tell my future husband, but I was caught on film having a brief albeit sweet love affair in the local Target bread aisle on day 22.

Ok, back to the P-Butter.

Actually, it started with the rice cakes on the aisle end cap. WHO PUTS RICE CAKES ON AN END CAP ANYWAY??!!! Aren’t end caps supposed to be reserved for really good stuff? I generally only shop the store perimeters, because as you can tell from the above photo, aisles get me into trouble!

Having not been interested in rice cakes since a burn out on them in the 90’s, I innocently but curiously picked up a pack to read the facts. Whole grain brown rice, no salt, 40 cals. How do they even stick these things together, I pondered as they swiftly made their way into my cart. I didn’t care-they reminded me of bread in a kind of guilt-free way that only a Bread Addicts Anonymous member could appreciate.

And that’s when in happened. I turn the corner into the produce area and what have they decided to move from who knows where to the produce shelving??? My eyes move quickly away from the broccoli and brussel sprouts, becoming permanently affixed on the newly relocated peanut butter. Laura Scudders. Hmmm, don’t they use peanuts and only peanuts? How bad can that be? Nuts are a large part of my diet-so a little bit of them ground up on one of these little 40 calorie faux breads can’t be all that bad. Or can it?

That night before bed I treated myself to a little bedtime snack. Ever heard the saying “sex with your pants on”? That’s exactly what this was, and today, 2 days later there isn’t a trace of rice or a morsel of a peanut to be found around here.

So my friends, here is to a week of hell at the gym, a good final dress fitting on Thursday, marrying the love of my life on Saturday, and living happily ever after-sans PEANUT BUTTER!

Yours in health, love, and usually good decisions,

Laura