I got on the scale last week after avoiding the thing since summer and thought I had forgotten to change the batteries because it was giving me such a crazy reading. Instead of the svelte guy I see in my mind’s eye every morning, it was informing me I’d somehow transformed into Jabba the Hutt.
Sure, I’d noticed that my jeans were getting tighter, but I blamed that on my wife, who I suspect occasionally shrinks them by drying them on high. That’s why I usually do my own laundry, but she’d recently done me a “favor” by throwing a load of my clothes in with the towels and sheets on the weekend, and I was pretty sure she’d ruined my pants.
And there was also the issue with my belt, which was acting recalcitrant by refusing to go into its usual notch. I blamed that on the belt, of course. Leather contracts as it ages, and that’s a wellknown fact.
The whole thing was unsettling, because I’m so cheap that I refuse to buy bigger pants. I’ve got three pairs of blue jeans that are in the perfect state of broken-in-edness, and I’mnot about to part with them. If I have to, I’ll wrap anAce bandage around my midsection in the morning to contract my belly enough to enable me to button them.
Of course, I could go on a diet, or stop eating so much, but darn it, I’ve been hungry since before Halloween. When I’m being honest with myself, I’ll admit that this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it’s happened every year for more than a decade.
And every time I’ve approached critical mass— and the possibility of having to buy new pants —I’ve lost enough weight so that I can button my britches without pneumatic assistance. I’ve probably lost the same 10 pounds more than a dozen times, which is — cumulatively — almost an entire me.
I do feel marginally better today after reading an NPR story that said that I am not alone in experiencing this unfortunate phenomenon. In fact, I can’t help it because it’s in my genetic code — and may have helped our cave-dwelling ancestors survive.
According to the story, researchers claim our appetites seem to change as the days start growing shorter because our primitive brains want us to stockpile calories for the coming lean months of winter.
Ira Ockene, a cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said, “We are driven by things implanted in our brain a long time ago.” Ockene’s researchers tracked how much people eat from season to season. Study subjects consumed about 200 more calories a day starting in the fall when the days start to grow shorter.
Ockene says we’re light-sensitive beings, and when there’s less sunlight, we start getting hungrier, looking for more food, and eating it faster. When you come right down to it, he says, we’re really no different than chipmunks. Our appetites get back to normal by spring or early summer, but by then lots of us are looking for new pants. It wasn’t such a big deal for our ancestors. Presumably, they’d just go kill another mastodon and make bigger britches out of the hide. I doubt anybody in the tribe sniggered about it either, or they’d get conked on the head with a cudgel.
“Look at Og! Had make bigger pants! HaHa! Took whole elephant thing to cover huge caboose. HaHa!”
THWACK!
Bottom line (sorry, couldn’t help it): It’s not my fault I’m a bit portly, I’m only fulfilling my biological imperative. I’m well prepared for the winter, in case theA&P runs out of food. And if I lose even a couple of pounds so my pants will fit, I’ll be good to go until spring and summer, when my appetite will be less, thanks to the light.
I wanted to share this amazing research as a holiday gift to my readers, in the hope of making some of them feel better about themselves, as well. You know who you are.
Post office update: Readers certainly responded to my recent column about my distress and uncertainty over the Milltown post office, and my displeasure over the weirdness at the East Brunswick post office. So far, the messages have been supportive, and they’re still coming in.
Next week, I’ll share a couple of the best — including one from Josh, who had a truly nightmarish experience trying to purchase the Holiday Baubles stamps — but in the meantime, I got a message from U.S. Rep. Rush Holt’s office last week that said he’s on the job. There’s been a flier taped to the temporary mail collection facility in Milltown encouraging people to contact the representative and ask him to help save the Milltown post office. Recently, he visited the place, and wrote about it in a Dec. 16 letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. In part, he said:
“Just this past weekend, I personally visited the Milltown Post Office and the temporary trailer,” Holt wrote. “In its current form, this facility is failing to meet the needs of local residents. I respectfully request you take all the steps you can to expedite the reopening of the Milltown Post Office.
“My understanding from local USPS employees is that the facility is very popular with residents and even profitable for the USPS. Rumors that the Post Office may not reopen in Milltown have caused significant concern for my constituents that rely on this location for personal and business purposes. I hope you will be able to help ease these concerns by clarifying your intentions with regard to the Milltown Post Office. This week, the USPS took an important step by announcing that no post office or mail processing facility would be closed or consolidated before May 15, 2012. I ask for your specific commitment that the USPS will maintain a retail post office location in Milltown.”
So far, no response from Donahoe, but I’ll keep you posted (couldn’t help that one, either).
Gregory Bean is the former executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].