I live down a rural lane. I moved their about a year ago. Since then **every morning ** and I mean faithfully every morning I see the two women walking. They walk for at least three miles every morning I know because they walk up to were I teach school. The only thing is this,
As I drive by they are both unfailingly smoking cigarettes as they walk! Is it me or is there something wrong with this picture? Isn’t this sort of like being on a diet and ordering a cheeseburger and a diet coke?
there’s no real explanation. I once had a guest at my home, we’d set out a platefull of home baked cookies. Her hand never stopped in it’s motion of “plate-mouth-plate-mouth”. We offered her a beverage, she opted for coffee, but then got upset because we didn’t have any fake sweetener. The caloric difference of 16 was going to be the factor here? :rolleyes:
It’s called the Diet Coke and Donut Syndrome. (No, not likely the technical name for it but I do recall it from my one psych-intro class.) Basically, it’s the mentality that you drank one calorie Diet Cokes all week so it’s “ok” to have a dozen donuts. Clearly, dieting doesn’t work this way, but I think lots of people indulge in this logic in various situations.
I’m currently trying to rationalize with my boyfriend who says he wants to quit smoking. Every time he lights up and I give him a look, he says, “But I haven’t smoked that much today!”…and he proceeds to have three cigarettes in a row.
Not that I’m exempt: After a grueling workout last night, I was starved for sweets and had to grab a few bites of Ben & Jerry’s before starting dinner. But hey! I worked out…sigh
A company I used to work for had a pizza party. Our receptionist joined in on the festivities, although she declined any pizza, as it is essentially “unhealthy.”
She opted for a salad.
…and as she sat at the table and ate her food, she alternated forkfuls of lettuce with puffs on her cigarette.
huh?
That’s funny stuff! My mom is a non-compliant diabetic and will do the same thing. “mmmmm- chocolate cake! Coffee? Sure! …what’s that? Oh,no- I need **artificial **sweetner- I’m diabetic!”
A friend and I were pigging out at an all you an chow buffet, and I ordered a diet coke. She thought it was odd, but understood when I told her it was the SUGAR I didn’t want, not the calories. I was having some blood sugar issues, and regular pop was making me really sick.
Zette
I dunno.
If they are addicted to smoking, then it’s probably better to smoke and walk three miles a day than be sedentary and smoke.
Quitting smoking is hard.
I personally used to smoke AND drink when I worked out.
Some are sicker than others…
I often see guys biking with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth.
Seems contradictory, non?
How can you ride a bike and keep a cigerette lit?
My favorite is my husbands grandmother. Nice lady who could and can kick all of your asses in any domestic related thing.(cooking, sewing, bricking a house) She’s a german. Coming over here and going to the Mega-lo marts are just a thrill for her because that is soemthing they do not have back home. She goes to the local 24 hour all in one store for HOURS, several times a week whenever she is here.
But she has to have an electric cart at the airport because it it too far for her to walk.
Never fails to crack me up.
I suppose everyone has one of those relatives with the ‘diet coke syndrome’
My aunt weighs in around 350, comes to the big 3
(Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter) dinners even though she is divorced from my uncle (the blood relative) and is Jewish. She scoops up about three layers of food on her plate and never fails to drink a diet Coke.
You can smoke on a bike… you can even smoke on a motorcycle, I have done it. The wonderful chemicals inside a cigarette help to keep it lit. This is why cigars are supposedly safer to smoke… less chemicals.
I used to get quite athletic after drinking and smoking (more a cause of the drinking) I would climb the outside terraces of apartment buildings with a stog in my mouth; run at a very rapid pace, sometimes being pursued by police; perform daring stunts which I couldn’t do sober, like suicide flips, half-splits, hand stands, grasping a pole and extending my body parallel to the ground, climbing flag poles and doing the same about 2 stories high. Stupid human tricks like that.
I never ‘planned’ to smoke during exercise. That seems a bit odd, but during recreational activities that were not pointedly an effort to improve my health, i.e. bicycling or walking to a destination, I would occasionally light up.
Hey! Try down hill skiing with one!
Maybe these people are walking and biking because they want to get somewhere. For some of us it’s a primary means of transport.
Not if you’ve ever been to France.
Perhaps the women aha mentions have non-smoking husbands. Either that or their lungs enjoy being hit with alternate blasts of clean and filthy air.
If you’re a smoker, it does help to get exercise. After getting on me about the smoking, my doctor told me I should at least do some aerobic exercising, and I did and it made a big difference. I’d smoke a couple in the morning, none while at work all day, then go to an hour of aerobics,then get home, have a glass of wine and light up. God, that cigarett was so good! I have since quit smoking, however, and quit the aerobics (because I didn’t like the instructor). I’ve gained 10 lbs., so even though I’m not smoking, I’m fat and lazy. I’m going back to the aerobics soon. So, bottom line is: smoker or not, EXERCISE is good for you. So the women ARE doing something right.
I kind of fall into the Diet Coke and ice cream club. I have ice cream maybe twice a week, but drink plenty of diet soda. (I like sugar, but not constantly. Even the diet soda’s watered down with lots of ice. But I digress…)
Years ago at the supermarket a checker prodded me about the diet soda and ice cream. “That makes no sense,” she said, tsking at me.
“No more than liking your paycheck but wanting to fuck with the customers,” I replied. 
I saw this kid once, outside the middle school near my house, riding a bike with a cigarette. He was probably only 13 years old, but he looked so cool doing that. I can’t explain.
Yeah. I see a lot of skateboarders with cigarettes in their mouths. But, if you suggested they were skating for the good of their health they’d probably beat you up.
So let me get this straight. If you have one unhealthy habit you might as well go for broke and aquire all unhealthy habits? Is that it? Well bring in the heroin then!
Aw, c’mon, you gotta allow a little bit of leeway when dieting. If you just flatly deny yourself every possible pleasure-food, odds are you’re gonna crack. Even when dieting very seriously (no meat, living on fruit, veggies, rice, and noodles), I’d allow myself to eat pizza or something similar once a week. Gave me something to look forward to, and I didn’t feel like I was flatly denying myself something pleasurable.
** Max ** I’d be happy to allow some one a dieting break, but: while wolfing down about a days’ calorie total in cookies, it seems, well, silly, to worry about the 16 additional calories you’d get by splurging on the packet of sugar.