Pity Party Poopers

Nothing ruins sensible, healthy eating like pity. This toxic momentum gathers you into a downward spiral like the flush of a toilet bowl.

Don't let me interrupt your pity party if you are having one. After all, it's your party you can cry if you want to. Or, if you want to ,you can consume a jar of peanuts, carton of ice cream, or box of pizza. As the guest of honor, you choose.

Pity gives us permission to overeat, indulge, and binge. It magnifies life's normal little struggles into mammoth, insurmountable obstacles faced by no other human being at any point in history.

When my kids were little, we read "Little House on the Prairie" books out loud. Pa would strap snow shoes to his feet and hike days and nights in freezing weather into town to buy bacon, flour, and thread.

But, hey, my husband came home late for work today and the scallops were cold. Plus the city is tearing up the road in front of my office and I have to leave 4 minutes earlier for work. My doctor says I have to drink decaf, which means I don't get to have real Starbucks coffee anymore...

Our foremothers had children die in their arms in canoes as they headed for a doctor's house and had to place their stiff children's bodies into the ground themselves. They lived in houses without insulation, heat, windows, air conditioning, or central vacuums. Not sure they'd buy into our explosive rant that the kitchen disposal isn't working. You'd have to first explain the whole running water and plumbing deal. After that, you'd have no case whatsoever.

Our lives are so privileged, so convenienced, so easy, we should celebrate nonstop. Yet we find reasons everyday to lament. I pout like the best of them. I will work myself up into a hormonal cocktail of female mania that sends my husband running for the first baseball game he can find on TV.

If my foremothers from 100 years ago were standing outside my window watching my pity party over exaggerated slights and minor inconveniences to justify excessive amounts of cheese, crackers, and chardonnay, how would I explain my plight to someone who has snow landing on her knees while she lays in bed with no birth control and a man who hasn't bathed since August?

"I've seen that front loading washer and dryer in your basement Dear," she'd say, "You've got nothing to complain about. So stop your bitching and shut your mouth. Maybe then you won't eat so much."

Find time today, instead of doing kegal exercises at a stop light, to summon the strength and perseverance of the enduring spirit of our foremothers. They didn't give in. They fought back. You can too.