The Childcare/Pringles/Vacation Diet

A multiple sclerosis ‘get fit’ plan

It helps that I am starting this New Year ‘get fit’ plan down five lbs after a month long family vacation. I am not completely sure how this happened as, since it was vacation, I was not exactly trying that hard. But I do have some ideas.

Idea number one is that healthy vibes might have graciously taken some pounds off when I made the decision not to join my family at a famous, nationwide, supreme buffet restaurant that shall remain nameless. They offer such healthy horrors as cotton candy and chocolate that pours miraculously from a fountain.

I am not much of a buffet fan. I think buffets are just a ridiculous excuse to gorge, if only for the justification of making sure you get your money’s worth. I know most buffets offer nutritious options, but who is actually filling their plate with broccoli when you have meats, sweets and carbs galore?

Plus, if I am spending money to go out to eat, I would like a nice person to bring me my food in appropriate portions and then maybe bring me a little box so that I can take some food home for lunch the next day. I can get up a million times to keep re-serving myself at home. No, I am not a fan of a buffet.

Since the rental car didn’t fit the entire family and the car seats needed for our youngest and cutest members, I offered to stay home with the little ones. The baby received a bottle for lunch and I must say, I make a mean bottle. I could tell by the cooing and the big burp he let out when he was done.

The oldest and I ate very healthy lunch of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Don’t judge. I put a bit of ketchup on the little one’s plate to meet the veggie requirement.

When the adults in the family returned, they all looked puffier, stuffier and ready to pass out from overindulgence. Hence, I definitely avoided extra poundage there.

Idea number two of the possible reason for the unexplained weight loss was the amount of activity required when hanging with the little ones. The baby wasn’t crawling yet, but he had perfected the across the rug roll. If you made sure there was nothing dangerous in his rolling path, you didn’t really have to chase him too much. Every once in a while you might have to roll over to him in order to see what he was up to and to play with him, but it wasn’t too exhausting.

 

His older brother however, all 22 months of expendable energy of him, kept me moving. Where does all that energy come from? And why do kids instinctively gravitate to the one thing they are not supposed to touch and have been told over and over to leave alone? And how come they understand the word “No” very clearly when they say it to you, but conveniently forget what it means when you say it to them?

I thought I would be smart and buy him a toddler’s basketball set. I figured I could pull over a lawn chair and toss the ball to him and he would throw it into the net, over and over. Not quite. Our basketball game revolved around him throwing the ball everywhere but at the net, and then heading in the opposite direction to try to touch what he wasn’t supposed to, while I was chasing the ball.

Eventually, he did get great at the game. He would catch a pass from me, head to the basket, drop the ball in and then clap. He did this three times. And then he was off. All day…

He also helped me on a project and this help may be the third reason why I actually lost five lbs on vacation. If you remember from my Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere blog, I was determined to try all the varieties of Pringles holiday flavors coming out in November, and then inform readers which was the best. Turns out the child loves Pringles and was a big help, taste testing and consuming many of the chips in order to help me get this issue straight.

My MS brain did not connect the obvious fact that if I wanted to keep him out of the Pringles, I could put them on a shelf out of his reach. Who knew that when he couldn’t open the tops of the Pringles canister the regular way, he would discover the skill of removing the lid with his teeth?

But he did help. We were able to find and test the Pumpkin and Spice, Cinnamon and Sugar, and White Chocolate Peppermint flavors. I was thrilled to complete this important taste task before the end of the New Year and thus, would have the answer on the best Pringles flavor before I focused on my ‘get fit’ plan.

The child liked to work on the taste test whether or not I was with him and able to take precious notes on the various taste differentials. Luckily in this case shown below, we had just washed the floor.

 

Anyway, after great debate, we decided that Cinnamon and Sugar was the best of the holiday flavors, followed by the Pumpkin and Spice. The White Chocolate Peppermint was just icky. Ultimately, the basic Pringles flavors rock the potato chip world the best. For me, it is regular but the child prefers Sour Cream and Onion.

Thank you little ones for the exhaustingly fun way to lose a couple of lbs. Unfortunately, these two live across the country. I am on my own for this plan now. Anybody have a child to lend that will run me ragged five lbs at a time?

 

 

Image courtesy of [Clare Bloomfield] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of [renjith krishnan] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net