Kicking It for Valentine's Day

In the past, Valentine’s Day has always been celebrated with a funny card and a bottle of champagne. However, this year it’s game on.

Even though we are cloistered 24 hours a day, apparently, it is still possible to miscommunicate. Here is what happened.

My husband usually takes the casual stroll to the mailbox for our daily delivery. Ostensibly, one day I beat him to it and retrieved, along with the weekly grocery store ads, a Valentine’s Day sales flyer from Victoria’s Secret.

As a side note; maybe I am getting old but not so long-ago catalogs like this, with lurid dioramas of naked women, were once considered pornography? One has to wonder when these flyers became acceptable coffee table photography.

Anyway, after blithely leafing through said flyer and as sort of a tease to tickle his imagination, I left it on the kitchen counter. My husband, after casually paging through the pamphlet, thinking it to be a not-so-subtle hint, gave it back to me, extracting a promise to allow him the privilege “to remove anything I selected” for my Valentine’s Day gift.

Humph. I know. Really? Now my worries went to another level. Is his fantasy wife that far different from the woman he professes to love? Should I worry, knowing up front, I won’t measure up to any of these pictures? Because, just so you know, he has never handed me an LL Bean catalog and said, “do your worst.”

Hats off to Victoria’s Secret. Their real marketing-magic is how they inspire a viewer to believe any woman can wear their crisscrossed-satin ribbons and miraculously be transformed into a waif-like prepubescent Barbie doll touting a bald-nude body while baring a pristine-melon-shaped buttocks. Their marketing is pure genius. Yet, the cold reality on the other hand is enough to make a real woman cringe.

Now you understand how a simple loving act can become one woman’s nightmare. And there you have it.

Naturally, after a year of being locked indoors, my accumulation of the dreaded COVID-10 has become a certainty. While real beauty may well be within, I was caught off guard until that dreaded V.S.V.D sales flier arrived, albeit an inconsequential coincidence, I was forced to take action.

My solution has two phases. Now, after a midday meal of meat and greens I retire with a book to begin the first phase of my new eating program. It’s called a nap.

The beauty of a nap is it fills a big gap of hours in my afternoons. Since our living area is more or less an open concept with a full view of the refrigerator and pantry from almost anywhere in the living area, a nap is my escape from the purgatory of being too close to the kitchen while trying to achieve ketosis.

Phase two, ketosis. It happens when one eliminates sugars, carbohydrates, processed foods, and diet sodas to name a few from your diet. Stevia seems the only thing one can use from a packet.

In other words, I am to eat real, whole food. If it doesn’t look like what it is, I cannot eat it. Food like beef, pork, lamb, and chicken interspersed with fish or shellfish. Add cheese, eggs, avocados to that, along with lots of hearty-leafy greens such as kale, spinach, and raw broccoli and there ya have it. All the while not eating more than 5 carbs a day.

It’s hard because even though mayonnaise and ice cream are made from many of the same ingredients, only one of them is sugar and carb free. While I ponder the answer – I’ve finished my lunch and am ready for my nap.

Meanwhile, my husband is waiting in a dreamy state of anticipation for my Valentine’s Day gift to arrive.

Elizabeth Youngman-Westphal can be reached at [email protected].