Seriously, at the Minnesota State Fair, we have 60-70 foods on a stick.

That is one hard-working stick.

That background (which I think a lot of American women have) made me constantly think about weight and food. In my 30s I started gaining weight, probably because I'd broken my metabolism by dieting so early and so much.

I think this is the real problem with a lot of American women, at least. Food becomes something you constantly think about because we are inundated with messages about our bodies and how desirable or not we may be. If you think about food constantly, you're thinking about food. And of course you feel hungry and crave things. If our culture were less misogynistic and healthier about this sort of thing, it would just be fuel to us.

The authors of Intuitive Eating [link] address this issue. Their position is that dieting is rarely successful, and messes up our bodies. Furthermore, there is real damage done by years of eating by external rules - ignoring hunger cues, the diet/binge cycle, etc. messes up a person's ability to take in what the body actually needs. Their strategy is for people to be free to eat whatever they want, as much as they want, whenever they want. After an initial period of possibly making binge-like choices, the element of forbidden fruit goes away so that people can pay attention to their bodies' cues as to when, what and how much to eat. Then gradually, the body will move out of the diet/famine/messed up metabolism danger zone, and into gradually releasing fat in excess of the individual's set point. [link] sums it up.

I've been trying to follow this, as I have reluctantly given up hope of ever finding a way to force any diet to succeed in anything other than me ending up all the fatter afterwards. I despair that nothing I will ever do will earn me the privilege of being skinny. This isn't going to get me skinny. But maybe it will let me stop getting fatter. It's terrifying to allow myself to try to view appetite as anything other than an enemy. And it is hard work to eat as much as my hunger calls for.

Drew, much ~ma for finding out what's going on in your body.

~ma for Perkins, as well.

What I was coming to post:

Fortune Magazine: Inside the Secret World of Trader Joe's

{{{{{Drew}}}}}

Sending ~Ma, Drew.

I should probably review with my parents, though.

Good plan. It's gotta be consistent.

It may be that the little guy has learned that he's supposed to wait until the nudge to go in. If he's not behaving in a fearful way, he may just be confused.

Bartleby's best friend thinks 5 "Here Bob!"s are required before he returns to his person. That pattern just got instilled so effectively by the man that the dog is actually doing exactly what he is asked by NOT coming when called.

It's gotta be consistent.

All 4 pets know that when I start setting up the coffeemaker in the evening that T-R-E-A-T-S are imminent, and within 20 seconds of me starting the process, a minimum of 3 furry critters are suddenly in the kitchen.

(The routine started because I would go in the kitchen to make lunch and set up the coffeemaker, and take the opportunity to send the dogs out for one last potty trip. When they came in, I'd give them a treat. And then I felt guilty that the dogs were getting a treat but the cats weren't, so I started giving the cats a treat at the same time.

When it involves food, it's astonishing how quickly they learn a routine. Seriously.)

Much, much health~ma to Drew, and also to Connie's sister. The only thing I experienced in the abdominal area was cured easily by Dicyclomine 3-4 times in my life, but the pain brought tears to my eyes. And I was lucky my dad had the same problem before, so I could take it after the first time (which I had to suck in, sadly). Since then, even though I didn't have this problem in 4 years (oh, stress induced pains. I hate thee), I still have few pills in my wallet, just in case.

"Maybe this time you'll feed me!"

Once again, I read it in Zoidberg's voice.

As for American food: it still confuses me. Mostly the "just add water to the powder!" already-made-food. Not to mention the deep fried ice cream, or all of the flavors of ice cream. As for myself, in a perfect world where I could give up coffee and chocolate, I'd do so. Actually, I'm thinking about giving up coffee for local tea. But chocolate... chocolate is why I'm not vegan, just vegetarian. I can't give up that.

plenty of chocolate is vegan, as long as you stick with the dark, dairy free stuff :)

I know. But unless it's for cooking and baking, I'm a milk-chocolate person, myself.