For those of you who don’t know, July is National Ice Cream
month. How great is that: a whole month to celebrate one of my very favorite
things! July also happens to be the month of my birth. (Coincidence? I think
not!) The combination of these things makes me feel justified—nay, compelled—to
eat ice cream every single day in July. It would disrespectful not to. Well,
maybe not disrespectful, but certainly a missed opportunity.
July is also the season when I am most self-conscious of my body
shape, and my extra padding. I don’t want to add to that. So I’ve devised a
special July diet that allows me to eat ice cream every day. And I’m willing to
share my secret with you.
The diet is essentially an enhancement of the South Beach
diet. South Beach promotes lean protein, lots of veggies, a few healthy fats,
and reduced sugars and grains. Plus drink lots of water, stuff like that. It’s
a pretty common-sense, easy-to-follow kind of plan, and generally I can lose
weight when I follow it.
One of the South Beach proteins is eggs, and I think that eating
them helps me lose weight more quickly. So most mornings I have eggs for
breakfast, which is enjoyable the first morning, tolerable the second, and from
then on feels a little like taking medicine. I try to dress them up with
veggies and hot sauce, but that doesn’t always help. Every couple of days I cheat
and have something else, but then I try to do eggs later in the day to take
advantage of their magic weight-loss power.
Every weight-loss plan is more effective if you increase
activity, so I do a half hour of something each day. I hate to exercise—and I’m
sure that a future blog will outline this in painful detail—but for now suffice
it to say that it’s not my favorite thing. But for the ice cream, I do it. I
usually walk, but yoga, biking, running, marching in front of the TV are all
acceptable. Even cleaning and gardening count, but if that’s my day’s activity,
I usually try to do it for at least an hour. Better still, I take the walk AND
do the cleaning.
Then I add ice cream. Now, if you’re a sick and twisted
person who would be satisfied with just a spoonful a day, you could probably just
eat that without any kind of damage. I am not that girl. Although I have never
eaten a full pint in one sitting (so that’s still on the bucket list), I want a
full serving, so often I’ll skip a meal and substitute ice cream. Sometimes
it’s a scoop, sometimes it’s a sundae, and when I’m really feeling decadent,
I’ll have a Dove bar. Usually I just raid the freezer at home, but sometimes I
go out for a cone or a shake. Whatever I eat, it’s generous. There’s no sense
doing this if you’re not going to commit. In the words of Reformation preacher Martin
Luther—taken completely out of context—If you’re going to sin, sin boldly.
During the first week I’m pretty disciplined, and I’ll
actually drop a few pounds. But then my resolve lessens, and when the
temperature rises, as it is prone to do in July, the exercise is even less
appealing. So I cheat a little, and I stop losing weight. But I don’t gain,
either, and I get to have ice cream every day. Life is full of these little
trade-offs.
Over the decades I’ve made lots of choices, large and small.
Not all of them were smart, but I can live with that. Not all of my choices
were kind, and those are the things I wish I could go back and change. The
reasons behind the choices are more important than the choices themselves. I
don’t regret the choices made out of love, or the times I chose to have the
right attitude in the face of undesirable circumstances. And it’s never a
mistake to choose joy—to choose something that makes you happy.
Like ice cream. Every day in July.
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