You are what you eat

I love to eat. Really, I do. Honestly. You may not believe me, but it's true. Why else do you think I get up in the five in the morning to submit myself to four-hour races in three-digit temperatures? Or plan on doing half-marathons, and half-iron men, and other activities that really should qualify as torture? So I can go home and gorge on all the bad food I want of course. Sure, OK, running is fun too. And cycling isn't too bad either. But if they didn't have the added benefit of being able to indulge in my love for chips and dip, licorice, popcorn, ice cream, and anything else that strikes my fancy, I'm not sure if I would be that gung-ho about them.

Let me tell you, by the way, that loving to eat is a real problem when you live where I do. Because everyone else loves to eat too, good food that is oh so bad for you, is available just about everywhere. Although you'd be hard-pressed to find a fresh produce stand, or a farmer's market in my neck of the woods, every street corner has a Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald's, Popeye's Chicken, Church's chicken, Chick-Fil-A, Wendy's, and you need a will of STEEL to resist all those enticing smells around dinner time.

Fortunately, although I may lack some backbone, I do have an iron will, and so have been able to ignore fries, burgers, and all things fried for years now. But it's been hard. Really hard. And really, the only thing between me and morbid obesity is, well, besides all that exercise, the fact that husband-dear and I operate on an ironclad grocery shopping principle which entails we each get to buy one unhealthy thing each week. Just one. So this week, I got chips, and he got ice cream. And that's it. The rest of our shopping list has sickeningly healthy things on it like "raspberries", "granola bars", "salad stuff", "fresh basil", "lean beef", "eggs", "raisins", and a whole slew of things that would make Paula Deen cringe.

But you know what's been really impossible lately? My students. And I don't mean in a behavioral sense (well that too, but I'll get to that some other time), no, in an eating sense. You see, the vast majority of my students love food too. Just like I do. Only they indulge in their cravings. And apparently, they prefer to indulge in them during my classes. Which means that anywhere from two to four times a day I am faced with a classroom full of students snacking on chips, drinking sodas, munching on a chicken breakfast sandwich, fries, chicken nuggets, chocolate, donuts, or whatever else struck their fancy that day. And when you've just had your incredibly healthy and nutritious lunch where the only sinful foods where the chocolate chips in your granola bar, that just seems really unfair.

Fortunately, I've found a solution. It's the same tactic I use when I run past a fast food restaurant with a line of cars in the driveway. Or when I bicycle past someone whose body mass index is less than perfect, getting out of their car at 10am, carrying a large box of donuts (and yes, even though I'm wearing sunglasses, I see you. I see you looking at me, and then looking away furtively, but, yes I have seen you, and yes, I'm even going smile, wave, and keep going). I tell myself that even though all these people, including my students, are getting what they want now, if we were all ever chased by a bear or a lion, I would outrun every single one of them. And not even break a sweat. Thus saving my hair and make up. And as well all know, hair and make up is everything down here.

So, yeah. Bring on the lions and the bears. I got them covered. As long as I can have some fries afterwards.