Day 16 - st. pat's

FOOD - Yesterday was a relatively good day on the food front. I realize that I am always interested in grazing. No snacking after the last piece of Dr. Pepper Chocolate cake, which is good (good that the cake is gone AND that I didn't snack afterwards). Today has begun with a bowl of Total and a cup of coffee. Brought a banana for later. Looks like Rob packed me a sandwich, a yogurt, and coleslaw for lunch. And I have my Trail Mix Bars.

MOOD - I watched an interesting episode of PrimeTime last night. It was titled "Life - The Game" and it had two human experiments going that tested what is referred to as "Game Theory". The first experiment: six pairs of people were randomly selected to find each other in New York City on a given day. They didn't know the other pairs, or know how many pairs of people were participating. What was amazing was they all found each other within three hours, at two major landmarks in the city, at or around the hour of noon. Three pairs met at the top of the Empire State Building and three pairs met at Times Square. This fed into one of the components of Game Theory, that

the success of what you do depends on the success of what other people do.

The other experiment: six people, all struggling with their weight, submitted to being professionally photographed in bikinis that were two sizes too small. They had to lose 15 pounds in the next two months, or those pictures were going to appear on national television. The theory tested here was that

fear is a major motivator, particularly when there are major immediate consequences, as opposed to a more general fear of (for example) not living a long life.

Five of the six succeeded: in one case, one of the people lost 30 pounds! The one who did not succeed was not ostracized -- they gave her the pictures to destroy (but I'll bet she lost some weight worrying between the weigh-in and the point they handed her the envelope!!!) I found both experiments particularly compelling. We are, or could be, major motivators for each other to make radical changes in our lives. And if we are not urged into action by each other, we should look to God for that encouragement -- he made us and loves us. To not properly maintain the gift of life, and to not care for ourselves is essentially saying "Who cares?" to the one who cares the most. Building on our successes together can take this Lenten experiment and have it truly change the direction of our lives on a permanent basis.