campaigns : Campaign Archive

January 5, 2006

The Three Tomatoes are back and wishing you all a Happy New Year. Now I’m sure you could have guessed that our first email of the year would have to be on that “resolutions” topic. We have a love/hate thing with New Year’s resolutions. We love the part that starts off the New Year with great enthusiasm, conjuring up new beginnings, new opportunities, visions of lost tonnage, cellulite free bodies, bad habits banished, and all those other self-improvement things we’re going to accomplish this year. And since we have lots of areas that could use self-improvement, our typical resolution list looks like this: lose weight, exercise more, eat healthy, consume more calcium and less alcohol, get all those “age” related yucky medical tests you’ve put off, read more of the classics, visit museums, be kind and nice to everyone even the ones who don’t deserve it, and in our spare time, learn something new, like speaking Mandarin Chinese. Oh my. So many resolutions, too little will power. That’s where the hate part comes in. We make all those resolutions on January 1 and by about mid-January we’re feeling deprived, then angry, then the heck with this, pass the martinis! And there we are, back to the same old, same old. In fact, there were years when we just skipped right past the resolution phase and just stayed in the same old, same old mode.

Weight Watchers and Seaweed

Well, it’s a New Year again and we’re going to try a new strategy. We’re going with one resolution at a time. If we’re successful at that one, then we’ll move onto another. So at the top of this year’s list, and therefore resolution #1, is our perennial -- LOSE WEIGHT! We’re not sure how this happens, because we’re “relatively” good all year long – exercising, watching what we eat, and then somehow Thanksgiving arrives and we spiral out of control. Then we’re shocked when we step on the scale on January lst and discover to our horror that we have somehow consumed the equivalent of Brooklyn. So we’re heading back to Weight Watchers, a program that really does work for us. We like it because it’s easy to count points, and no foods are forbidden .If you want to consume your dinner points in martinis, that’s your business, but usually it forces you to make healthy eating choices. We’ve found it works best if you enlist a pal, or several of them. In fact, a few years ago, we enlisted some other tomatoes who wanted to shed some tonnage, and formed our own little highly competitive and unorthodox Weight Watchers group. We all went for weigh-ins once a week and our rule was we only stayed for the meeting if someone had gained weight -- then every one had to sit through the meeting. Talk about pressure! We all reached our goal weight, but I’m sure our lifetime memberships would be revoked if the WW people knew our approach. So, this year, we’re actually going to sit through the meetings. Of course, we’re not starting until next week, because we’re too embarrassed to step on the scales this week and somehow think losing a pound or two first will make a difference. And we’re going to try the Japanese seaweed plan. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on “kanten”, a gelatin made from ground-up seaweed that tricks the body into thinking it is full. Apparently, it has become the rage in Japan and has been endorsed by several leading Japanese physicians and nutritionists. It is supposedly safe, because it is basically a flavorless thickening agent that has no calories, lots of dietary fiber and is rich in calcium and iron. The kantan (also know as agar) expands after it has been eaten, tripling in mass as it absorbs liquids in the stomach so you feel full. Of course they caution that it’s also important to eat a balanced diet, exercise, and eat less. (Well duh!) Cost is less than $5 for a two-ounce bottle of agar and is available online at iHerb.com and StandardVitanet.com. It’s suggested that you consume two grams thoroughly dissolved in hot liquid three times a day. We’ll let you know our experience and if any of you try it, please gives us your feedback. Yes, we know, we’re looking for the “miracle”, but this sounds a lot safer than those Hollywood types who are dieting down to skin and bones by taking a medication that’s given to horses!

What are your New Year’s resolutions? Let us know by dropping a line to tomato@thethreetomatoes.com