Ice Cream Stains on My Race Jersey

So, you know that part in my personal introduction where I told you that I might reveal how health freaks mess up sometimes? I would now like to make good on that promise by telling on myself. And it won't be pretty. Which is why some of you will love it.

Just over two weeks ago, I finished my first half-marathon. It was a beautiful feeling. While I took longer than I had planned to, I still relished the sense of accomplishment that comes when a dream like that is realized. I got more than a little giddy at having my first legitimate finisher medal. And I love the technical tee that I got in my enrollment packet. It's soft, breathable, and, obviously, super cool because it comes from a flipping half- marathon. I wear that bad boy whenever I think I can get away with it.You would be amazed at how many times it has made it into the wardrobe rotation in little more than 14 days.

Just over a week ago, it was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. The Hubs and I are pretty frugal folks, so that word "free" caught my attention. The Hubs and I are also supposed to be pretty healthy folks, but Ben & Jerry's had me at hello. I was going to go get me some of that scrumptious stuff and cross my fingers that none of my health class students caught me there. And the only reason they *would* see me there is if they too were indulging, at which point I had my handy "judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged" retort ready. After all, I get to read their food diaries.

Guess what I wore to Free Cone Day? Yep. My race jersey. The Hubs went in one of his triathlon jerseys, and we laughed heartily at ourselves and our hypocrisy as only two people obsessed with health can do. Because it's really not that funny otherwise.

Guess what I dripped all over my race jersey? Yep. My Free Cone. Which, incidentally, I had upgraded to a waffle cone with an extra scoop of ice cream. It was only $2, and it supported the schools. Of course, I could also have supported the schools by getting the new frozen Greek yogurt varieties, but I wasn't interested in small cones, or offerings that did not include chocolate. And the chocolate is exactly what landed on three different spots of my race jersey. The diet gods sought their revenge for my poor choice, and they got me where it hurt the most.

NOTE: This picture is from Google images. It isn't me. It doesn't

look a thing like me. Heck, if my skin were that tan, I would care less

about being caught with a face full of chocolate. Or ice cream. Or both.

Thankfully, my jersey is fine now, thanks to a little pre-treatment with Dawn dishwashing liquid, which I am not paid to endorse, but now feel I ought to be. It looks like nothing ever happened, and it is ready to be worn on whatever food adventure carries me off next.

For the most part, my body looks like nothing ever happened, but that can't be quite true. Every time we eat something with a GL over 20, we send our glucose levels on a roller coaster ride that causes weird things to happen. Things like arterial spasms that we never feel. Things like energy depletion that we do feel. Truth be told, ice cream served at home isn't *that* bad on the glycemic load spectrum. A half-cup serving, on average, has a GL of about 8. While I don't heartily advocate it, because it's really not what any dietician would dub a balanced snack, it certainly isn't the worst blood sugar offender out there. 

So what's the big deal about my ill-fated foray on Free Cone Day? In the world of glycemic loads, size really does matter. Have you ever seen a half-cup of ice cream? It's less than you think. It may have been the size of the single-scoop Free Cone, but I know that those upgrades put it over the top. In fact, I checked out the facts for the closest competitor I could find, Cold Stone Creamery, and found out that even their smallest offering, the Like It-sized serving, is over three times as large as that half-cup serving we are supposed to have. And guess what that does to the GL, my friends? It suddenly turns ice cream into a glycemic nightmare. If you don't believe me, check out one of my favorite websites, NutritionData.com and see the GL of your favorite flavor for yourself. Fortunately for me, they don't have a listing for "Ben & Jerry's Free Cone, Super-sized for Maximum Cellular Damage." 


On the flipside, size matters in another way. If you split a treat--or any food for that matter--with someone, you can cut your glycemic load in half. Assuming you're not a territorial pig who eats all but one bite. And assuming you and that someone can agree on ice cream flavors, which would never happen in our home. The Hubs is a wonderful man, but let's just say that his taste in women is, in general, far superior to his taste in ice cream flavors. His ice cream choices don't exactly raise the bar too high for his taste in women, but if you're reading this, I trust you think he's done all right in choosing a life partner. I mean, I ran a half-marathon for crying out loud. That trumps lame-o Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream any day of the week.

Wanna know what we did when we went home from Free Cone Day? Watched Biggest Loser and did crunches during commercial breaks. How ironic is that?

Write vs. Might

I almost took a swig of my husband's Dr. Pepper 10 this morning. Almost. Theoretically, as a wellness teacher, I am vehemently opposed to all forms of soda, especially those containing fake sugar with whacky chemical side effects.  As a single girl, I knew better than to drink the stuff. But I married a Southern boy from Alabama, where Dr. Pepper and sweet tea are preferred to water by a ratio of 999:1. I would like to think of myself as a victim of Jon's attempt to brainwash me into becoming a real Southern lady. That soda was just part of a larger ploy that includes learning to enjoy BBQ date nights, accepting the fact that watermelon can be salted and potato salad can be warm, and adopting Crimson Tide football as a second religion.  While we have made a lot of breaks from the bad habits of our youth, the complete and utter elimination of the bubbly (that's Baptist-speak for "soda," since we don't do champagne) hasn't been one of them. Honestly, I'd found it sneaking into my diet way more than I'd care to admit here on paper.

Which is exactly why I took a pass on it today. You see, today I am starting to keep a food journal for the first time in a long time, in partnership with my health class students who are doing the same. This week, we are just supposed to practice writing down everything we eat and drink so we know where to clean up our habits next week. But there was NO WAY I was going to let them see that I--their revered, beloved, disciplined, amazing health class teacher (I just spoke in, like, a thousand hyperboles there)-- had a random swig of soda on Day One of food journaling. Besides, I already know with the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I will have plenty of examples for them of what NOT to do when trying to lose weight. I've got to save face where I can, my friends.


Apparently, I'm not the only one who will change their food decisions just so they look good on paper. It looks like there may be more to this ego-trip than meets the eye. The big wigs at Kaiser Pemanente Hospital conducted a study in 2008 which showed that those who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as their less literary counterparts.  Why? Because it's so easy to think you're doing all right with your food until you see it  written down in black and white. One of my students said it best: "If you don't write it down, it didn't happen." That bag of Cheetos? Don't know what you're talking about...  Cookies for dinner? A second slice of cake? Not my problem... But, while you can pretend that those unrecorded forays into the fridge didn't happen, that Shakira song with those lyrics, "My hips don't lie," will come back to bite you in the...um, hips.

And just in case you have a personal grudge against Kaiser Permanente and refuse to validate their study, I'll give you the results of a similar study: this one showed that you had a measly 20% chance of succeeding in your weight-loss goals if you didn't keep some sort of a food journal. Right now,  while I am pursuing a vanity goal of getting down to my wedding weight for our fifth anniversary in April, I value the 80% chance of success that journaling gives me. But, I've been meaning to work on this goal for awhile; I just haven't gotten around to it. I've put it off until it was convenient, which basically meant I let myself cheat when the Spirit led me, because there was zero accountability to myself or anyone else for what happened.  I absolutely know that writing it down makes all the difference between starting on that goal today and putting it off until some other time. I either "write" now or I "might"  start on the goal tomorrow.

Well, food isn't the only thing worth making lists of. I am off to accomplish the other tasks on my to-do list today. Which no longer includes Steak N Shake Happy Hour.

Bonus Tip: Looking for a techie way to keep a food journal? Try MyFitnessPal.com, which even offers a great app that tracks your daily GL intake! If you don't know what GL is, you clearly didn't pay attention to my previous post. And you are probably at Steak N Shake drinking that half-priced milkshake.