Playtime and Friends Improve Weight Loss

Southwest Airlines' Spirit magazine's April 2012 issue included two articles--one about playtime and the other about weight loss camaraderie--that mirror our efforts with the Diet Drop project.

When my husband and I were flying back from New Jersey to LA, I couldn’t sleep or reach my book so I read the Southwest Airlines’ magazine, Spirit (April, 2012, issue). Two articles caught my attention and reflected some of the goals and philosophies we share on Diet Drop. The first article is, “It’s Called Play,” which, in a nutshell, states that playtime at any age is essential to a health and creative thinking; and the second is, “Dynamo, Mississippi,” which parallels our emphasis on companionship and how it can greatly increase long-term weight loss success. Read on for more insights and highlights from experts that mirror our efforts with Diet Drop.

Vacation Eating: East Coast Edition

We only get to go to New Jersey to visit my husband’s family about once a year because it’s hard to budget for the airfare these days. But when we get there, it’s a whirlwind of house-hopping to see each of his FIVE brothers, his mother, his aunt and cousin, and our friends in the area, all set to the sounds of merengue, salsa, bachata, and hip hop, and the smells and tastes of Peru, Brazil, and Newark. It’s always an amazing time. I fell in love with Newark when I moved out there to go to college…and then I fell in love with my husband, whom I met there. His family moved to Newark when he was a little kid. Being from the west coast, it was a crazy culture shock at first

A Newark bridge on a cold, overcast morning.

to move to Newark, but after the first week, I knew I’d found a new home. I spent nearly five years there before we decided to move to Los Angeles for a while. It’s an area that has a little bit of everything from nearly every part of the world…with a distinct New Jersey attitude about it. Plus, it’s only a 15-minute train ride from Manhattan, which is awesome, of course.

Newark on a bright sunny day during our trip. Beautiful springtime.

I can imagine us moving back there someday, but LA is my home too, so we envision a life of living in several places in the future. As long as we’re together, home is where your heart is, right? Anyway, my point is that we have a blast when we go there. And a lot of the fun and visiting is centered around food, which is a terrific, bittersweet problem to have because everything tastes great but I’m trying not to eat too much. When you’re around family and on vacation, it can be extremely difficult to not over-indulge or even feel pressured by others to eat more, as I described in this previous post. For example, practically the first words out of my Peruvian mother-in-law’s mouth were, “Estas rellena. Toma, come,” which, loosely translated means she told me I looked like I had filled out (was a little heavier) than when she last saw me and then she told me to eat the huge plate of food she was handing me. She cracks me up. I love her to death and she’s an awesome M-I-L, but how am I supposed to eat after being told I look ready-to-have-babies heavy? Ha! Because she raised six boys, bless her heart, she typically overloads a plate for me–even if I tell her it’s too much, she insists I eat it–so sometimes, when my husband finishes his plate before me, I’ll switch my half-eaten plate with his empty plate when no one is looking. :) He happily eats more, I sit there happily stuffed.

I noticed a few general diet-saboteurs that occur when traveling:

The Snack Monster

Late at night, when a hush falls over the city and the moon rises high in the sky, a throaty howling screech pierces the calm. Ripping, shredding, gnawing noises cause people to wake from their sleep, cats to arch and hiss, and the sirens of the police start blaring.

I wish I could say it was an attack. A single, isolated event in which I was the victim. But the  dark truth is that last night I was not mauled by a monster, I became the monster…the snack monster. Just past midnight, I felt my hair frizzing, my eyes widening, my stomach grumbling, and my mouth salivating for anything I could find that was salty or sweet.

Late last night, Michelle became...The Snack Monster! Illustration by Michelle.