Running a full box of Fig Newtons through the wash: Editor’s Note

I ran an entire package of Fig Newtons through my washer machine last month.

It was not, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing.

I didn’t do it on purpose, but the reason why I laundered a box of cookies illustrates a problem that is bigger than a gunked-up washer.

I put those cookies in my gym bag to hide them from myself, so I wouldn’t compulsively keep eating them.

From the gym bag, it was a quick drop into the washer machine. I was oblivious enough not to notice them, and in a matter of minutes, about 3,000 calories’ worth of cookies (or are they cake?) disintegrated in the spin cycle.

Food-covered laundry aside, I’ve got a problem many of you may understand. I overeat. As a result of overeating, I now weigh too much.

In fact, I’ve gained enough weight that I’m now on a diet so I can avoid having surgery for a potential health problem.

I used to be a skinny long-distance runner – how on earth did it come to this?

A quick look at the facts tells me I’m not alone.

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 68 percent of American adults are overweight or obese (having a body mass index greater than or equal to 25.) An estimated 33.8 percent of Americans are obese (that means having a BMI of 30 and above.)

This is bad stuff, and we’ve all heard it before: being overweight puts us on course for everything from cancer and diabetes to heart attacks and strokes.

I’ll speak for myself here: no matter how much finger-wagging I read from the experts, I am still fat. And frankly the preaching gets on my nerves.

I know why I am overweight. I’ve fallen under the spell of fast food and a stress-filled life. I eat when I’m anxious, and I eat when I am tired.

At times, my job seems unrelenting, and single parenting is no walk in the park. Those are elements of my anxious, tired life. Probably they are elements in your life, too, if you are reading this. We are built for “fight or flight,” but yet our world is full of things (this computer, for starters) that push every button in our caveman brains.

Sometimes I wish the experts would come down off their mountaintop and write for me. Or pick up my daughter from school when she misses the bus. Or do my dishes.

But I know that no matter how irritating the advice can be, and how sorry I may feel for myself (it’s not that often, really) deep down inside I have the power to choose the right way to live.

I can’t give up my jobs as an editor or a parent, but I can choose how I want to feel about them.

If I don’t feel right about elements of either job, I have the right, as an adult living in the biggest democracy on earth, to occasionally shut the door on them, and give my tweaked-out brain a break.

Sometimes it is okay to be selfish. Sometimes the only way to save your life is to be selfish.

In fact, I am about to close this computer down, so that I can put my gym gear on and do something for myself in a few minutes. I could actually sit here at my desk, grinding away into the night, and still not be done.

But I’m saying “not right now.” I’m going to breathe hard. I’m going to use my arms and legs for something besides typing and pushing file drawers shut.

I need to be a good employee and mom. But even more so, I need to be a healthy employee and mom.

So – best wishes and see you on this page next week.

And don’t even TALK to me about Fig Newtons!