By Scott Linscott

I try to eat healthy most of the time but when I fall off the wagon, I fall hard. Back in 1901, that expression meant that the driver of the water cart, going around spraying down dusty roads, drank water instead of booze since he was “on the wagon.” Today, “falling off the wagon” applies to abandoning a healthy habit to dive into an unhealthy one.

My tumbles off the wagon usually come when I am stressed out, feeling out of control, or discouraged. That’s called “emotional eating.”

I also have what I call “celebration eating.” That happens when we party. We Linscotts celebrate A LOT! Cakes, desserts, cookies, ice cream, ice cream and more ice cream are part of every celebration. Every day is a bonus day and we are very good at remembering that.

My too-busy-for-good-eating periods have been crushed by COVID restrictions. I’m not too busy. I don’t rush from one meeting to another anymore and drive through businesses probably think I died or moved. Unfortunately, now I graze the cupboards and counters here at home and, since we celebrate a lot, there are usually left-overs.

I’ve made two significant discoveries this summer:

1. I can do without donuts made from potatoes. A local, very popular donut shop makes their donuts from a potato recipe and a lot of people love them. Me? Nah. I prefer the light, fluffy donuts. Potatoes should never be used to make cakes and donuts.
2. Homemade Birthday Cake Ice Cream has the power to turn me into a a dumpster-diving bear. Hunters could bait me with birthday cake ice cream and stand right there with their guns ready and I would still come stumbling toward their trap like I was stuck in a tractor beam. I am powerless around that stuff.

In January I weighed 207 pounds. This morning I weighed 225 pounds. That’s 18 pounds of celebrations, grazing, discouragement and birthday cake ice cream and a promotion to BMI Class 1, 32 BMI. It’s not a promotion any of us want, especially with COVID skulking around. (BMI CALCULATOR) The CDC shows that the bigger we are the harder we fall if we get the virus. It has used cases of people hospitalized to show our risk of “serious illness requiring hospitalization” based on our chunkiness alone.

Overweight (not obese), if BMI is 25.0 to 29.9.

Class 1 (COVID: low-risk) obesity, if BMI is 30.0 to 34.9.

Class 2 (COVID: moderate-risk) obesity, if BMI is 35.0 to 39.9.

Class 3 (COVID: high-risk) obesity, if BMI is equal to or greater than 40.0.

My mother couldn’t say “obese.” She would say “obeast” instead. I weighed more than 300 and she would scold me about my weight, while handing me a whoopie pie, saying, “you are too obeast.” Robin would laugh later and say, “Oh beast, come in here beast!”

I’m considering buying combination locks for the freezers to keep me out of the ice cream. We already instituted the policy of sending all dessert leftovers home with the kids to reduce my grazing habits. And now, we are trying to add daily walks. Our problem is that I’m too slow for Robin so she has to schedule time to walk her beast and time to get in her 3-mile exercise walk.

Are there other tricks to keeping the bears out of your food? Let me know and maybe we will implement them here on Village Lane. I’d really, really love to get back to the plain, old, fat guy classification leave Class 1 behind.

Have a great day. Don’t invite me to your celebration but, if you must invite me, please chain me to a tree where I can’t reach the dessert table. If you have birthday cake ice cream you better make it one of those heavy chains they use to on ships.

#everydayisabonusday