The thing you have to watch so you don’t slide all the way down…
I walk at the local mall every morning. It’s too hot to walk outside here most of the year (except when it’s too cold) so I join the other old fogeys in the perfectly climate-controlled spaceship-like mall. I go between 7:30 and 830 (should have left ten minutes ago) six or seven days a week. I enjoy it, look forward to it, and don’t have to make myself do it, especially if I have a good audiobook to listen to. Must go before the stores open at 10, or there are too many people to dodge. The best time is 7:30 on Sunday morning when there are only a couple of walkers, and the cleaning people aren’t even there yet.
I often take one day a week off, and sometimes circumstances demand that I miss two days. But then I absolutely make sure I go the next day. It would be so easy to let two days become three days… and then four and then a week. And down the slope.
I also have to simply NOT buy certain snacks at the grocery store. I have no control. If it’s a cookie I like, or ice cream in anything except a single-serve cup, or a big bag of Hanover’s Honey Mustard Pretzel Bits*–forget it. I tell myself in the store that I can meter my consumption, but when I get home…resolutions fails mightily. I can buy the big bag of chips or cookies that contain smaller, single-serve bags. I might eat two of those, but I’m not going to eat all of them the way I can easily go through half a bag of pretzel bits or sour cream & onion potato chips.
It’s all about “know thyself.”
What are yours?
I’m off to walk!
*If you haven’t tried these, gitchyseff some. One of the best snacks ever. You can thank/curse me later.
Peanut butter. Especially the crunchy kind. Right out of the jar with a little salt pm a spoon. Mmmmm (sticky mouth). I try to limit myself to one spoonful. But sometimes I use a BIG spoon. It’s hard not to go back for seconds.
Real, proper BBQ is too expensive for me to eat very often. Roast, shredded pork shoulder with KC Masterpiece, red pepper flakes and jalopenos - yeah, I’m all over that.
Anything sweet, pretty much. It sucks too because a lot of my favorites can not be purchased in a small enough portion for me to safely bring it into my house.
Yups for me, especially if it’s a new activity that I can buy stuff, and stuff, and MORE STUFF for. Just last weekend a friend inherited all of my top-o-the-line kayaking equipment, unused for three years after one summer of use.
Salted pistachios, Ben and Jerry’s Smores ice cream, Jeni’s Salted Caramel ice cream, Caramel M&Ms. And I’m not so good with potato chips, either.
And yeah, about that activity thing…I try really hard not to do that, because I tend to obsess on expensive hobbies. Used to be hockey, and motorcycling. These days it’s board games. At least when I play MMOs, I can accumulate virtual stuff…
The funnest part can be buying the accoutrement . . . I’ve been through woodworking, fossil hunting, metal detecting, mountain biking, kayaking, and stock investing over just the past 15 years.
I think we should start a Doper hobby supply exchange: “Metal detector, used twice, will exchange for beekeeper’s hat veil, an ice ax, or beveled scrapbooking scissors.”
That’s a good one. I’ve been known to spend quite a bit on a new hobby before I’ve even started. Then I do it for a while, then I’ll really push myself for a while longer, but eventually it’s all just sitting there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to have know the basics of a lot of the stuff I dove into, but some of those things got expensive, fast.
The worst part is, for some of them, I could probably go find small class and get a few hours of training from a pro and find that actually doing it right (instead of teaching myself) would spark my interest in it again.
Someday.
Oh, cripes. This is me. Slap a sale sticker on it and I’m drawn like a moth to a flame.
I also have a closet half full of various craft supplies, all used a few times before being abandoned for something else. I’ll get back to them some day…