Chubby People Live Longer. Yipeeeee!

It's true. A Japanese study confirms it. According to a 12 year study conducted by a Japanese health ministry team led by Tohoku University professor Ichiro Tsuji, chubby people at age 40 can expect to live up to seven years longer than skinny people.

Now that is a study I can go with.I was somewhere in my fifties when it came to my attention that I weighed 30 pounds more than I did at the age of 20, in spite of quite normal eating and exercise habits.

My efforts to lose weight soon made it clear to me that the only way I was going to get back my girlish figure was to spend two hours a day at the gym, have a tummy tuck and never again chow down on anything but salad, oats and groats. It was a sacrifice I was unwilling to make.

So here I am chubby, aging, and vindicated at last. I could not be happier. Yipeeee I'm going to live longer than all the skinny women I know and I haven't had to give up ice cream.

Thank you Professor Tsuji. We chubby people of the world think you are a god:-)


source: Newsmax.com

Ed McMahon and Me

Ed McMahon passed away last night. It wasn't a big surprise. He had been very ill with cancer for some months, and he was, after all, 86 years old. Still, his death comes as a shock. I suppose that no matter how old we are, the icons of our childhood and youth seem to us somehow immortal. That's what Ed McMahon was for me-- one of the landmarks of my life. It seems impossible that he is gone.

His " Heeeere's Johnny" at the start of the Johnny Carson Show marked my passage from high school to college, from college to job, to marriage, mortgage, motherhood and the other joys of adult life. He entered my bedroom every night after the evening news. My relationship with him was intimate in a way that those born into a world of Cable TV, TiVo and the Internet cannot imagine. I came of age in a world of rotary dial telephones and three TV networks. Johnny Carson was on NBC after the 11pm news and he ruled the late night airwaves. Johnny and Ed were major celebrities.

Ed McMahon was always the perfect foil for Johnny's sharp verbal jabs and the most jocular of second bananas. He laughed at Johnny's jokes, peddled the sponsor's products, and always seemed like a big, strong, friendly bear of a man. It pained me in recent years to see him peddling geriatric products and burial insurance on TV. It seemed such a comedown. But then old age has a way of evening the playing field. Perhaps it is the fluttering of dark wings over my own head more than a personal loss I am feeling.

Whatever it is, I feel a nostalgia for the Ed McManhon of my youth. He was a wonderful, larger than life figure with lot's of what we used to call " presence." Surely, when he reaches the pearly gates there will be a trumpet fanfare and St. Peter will greet him with a big " Heeere's Ed"

Strawberry Time in New Jersey

It's Strawberry time here in Central New Jersey--the time of year when I really know why they call us the "Garden State" For a brief shining moment, my local farm market will have small succulent, flavorful, fresh picked local strawberries for sale and I will be gorging on them every day until the season is over ( which, sadly, will be soon)

Yes, I can buy strawberries all year long at the super market, but I don't bother. I don't like the cardboard taste of those huge, over fertilized, under ripened things that are flown in off season from California Mexico or even Chile and Argentina. No taste and too many food miles for me. I just wait until June every year and go wild.

And now a plug for my local farm market. The Homestead Farm Market in Lambertville, NJ. Right now they not only have baskets of yummy locally grown strawberries, but a home baked strawberry rhubarb pie that is to die for. Stop by and pick one up if you're in the neighborhood.

photo by http://www.ferdas.com/ Thanks

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