Jeff Blogs

Holidays have to be a dieter’s worst nightmare. In our family it would seem that we are always looking for a reason to have a party; one that includes as many favorite foods as you can possibly include. Holidays are one of the biggest reasons why I chose to begin my diet when I did.

There was no way I wanted to be on a structured eating plan during Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. There are just too many comfort foods that I could never see myself doing without. Since being on this diet, some of that has changed but I still would have a hard time not partaking of oven-roasted turkey with grandma’s stuffing and what would Thanksgiving be without a slice of Trina’s hot apple pie? Even the thoughts of those tastes and smells bring back fond memories.

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Today my youngest daughter turns 16. This is a thought that scares her as much as it scares me. I am having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that my daughter is now going to be old enough to date boys and she has to come to grips with the fact that she will have to bring boys to the house and have them meet her dad.

Her older sisters have no doubt talked to her at length about what she should expect now that she is dating age. These discussions have probably been less about how to handle the boy on the date and more about how to manage dad so that you get more than one date before she graduates from high school.

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I remember as a kid I always looked forward to my birthday. First off it was awesome to see my little brother cry because he wasn’t getting the attention he wanted. Second, I usually got really cool stuff for my birthday. There was the baseball gloves and bats, the toy guns that always seemed to shoot some kind of projectile that would be banned using today’s standards, and then there were the bikes. Early on it was a sting ray with ape hanger handlebars and a banana seat. Then it was a Schwinn 10-Speed road bike. Finally it was a carbon fiber downhill mountain bike. And then there were the cakes. My mom always made awesome birthday cakes with cool decorations. There were car cakes, baseball cakes, a Spiderman cake, and countless other shapes and sizes. About the only time I had a bad birthday cake was the year I wanted to make my own cake.

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