THE POUNDS ARE COMING! THE POUNDS ARE COMING! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

October is now 16 days old.....it really feels like Fall!!!

We all love the crunch of Fall leaves under our feet, the cool breezes of the season, the smell of bonfires in the air, the thrill of Friday night football games and the excitement of Sundays wearing our NFL team colors, cheering on our favorite teams.  We are looking forward to wearing our cuddly sweaters, donning our favorite knee high boots and wrapping ourselves in our fashionable scarves and lovely fedoras.   We are excited to carve our pumpkins, display our favorite witches and golbins at our homes and pass out candy to those cute little trick-or-treaters on our doorstep.  
Yes, Autumn is here in all it's splendor and brillance.  A season to behold.....
Yet, lurking amid all that seasonal loveliness and childlike fun, there's a sinister undercurrent of discomfort and a joy-sucking fear that finds it's way to our hearts and minds......
What is it? Seasonal Weight Gain Articles in every damn magazine.....
It's enough to scare the heeby-jeebies out of anyone.
It's even worse than those haunted houses and scarey movies that spring up all over October! 

So, there I was---on Saturday night, lounging on the couch, covered in my favorite leopard fur throw with a stack of magazines and a big steaming mug of hot chai tea, with my favorite pumpkin candles burning and the lull of soft rock in the backround-- nursing this awful cold-flu thing that has had me it's grips for the past week and trying to recover from a week of overwhelming work, long hours and general craziness. The perfect setting for what I thought was the perfect way to try to regain my mental and physical health. 

Now, maybe it's because I don't choose to read scholarly or literally acclaimed magazines or perhaps it's just my hypersensitivity to all things weight and diet related but out of the 8 magazines I had chosen to relax with--there was only one of them that didn't mention the October to January weight gain problem.  The one that didn't mention it was Vanity Fair (although,there were enough pictures of beautifully toned bodies to make even the most gentile, healthy person feel a bit bitchy witchy).  Naturally, I scoured each article--holding on to each word as if it were gospel--coughing and weezing my way through each page (probably leaving tons germs on each page--so if the articles don't make the next reader awfully sick--my germs might!). 
Here's some gruesome statistics from those articles.....booooo.....scarey......
*The average person will gain anywhere from 7-10 pounds between October and January
*Depending on which article you read....the average person will consume anywhere between 4500 to 7100 calories during one holiday meal (and THIS is only for ONE meal!)
*The average person will only lose 50% of those pounds, thus carrying 5 extra pounds to the following year's weight gain of 7-10 pounds

Are you shivering and shaking in your shoes yet?
Yeah, I know the feeling.

However, now that I have given up the cold meds and my mind is a bit clearer, I have decided I have nothing to fear. 
I am not the average person. 
So, clearly none of this pretains to me....... 
(I suggest you adopt the same attitude.....don't let the  Holiday Conga Line defeat you!)