By Max Greenberg
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About this blog: I developed a special interest in helping seniors with their challenges and transitions when my dad had a stroke and I helped him through all the various stages of downsizing, packing, moving and finding an assisted living communi...
(More)About this blog: I developed a special interest in helping seniors with their challenges and transitions when my dad had a stroke and I helped him through all the various stages of downsizing, packing, moving and finding an assisted living community. I live in Palo Alto with my wife and we have three grown children, one still in college. I have been in the Bay Area since 1977 (except for seven years in Newton MA — just missed all that snow too much.) I've worked in sales and marketing in retirement communities for seven years, and have hired and managed home care workers for family members, and have a pretty good idea of how aging in place, or shopping for and selecting the right retirement community works. I now run my own business, Palo Alto Senior Living, providing real estate and senior transition services. This blog is designed to share my experiences, insight and knowledge with seniors and their baby boomer kids and provide useful information to help develop a roadmap for smooth transitions or aging in place. I welcome readers to share their experiences, both good and not-so-good, in the hope that we all can benefit from each other.
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That's a little piece of advice I received once, and it never rings as true as it does around Thanksgiving time. Ah Thanksgiving: a time when families come together around the TV watching the Detroit Lions missing their families once again on Thanksgiving (actually there are now 6 or 8 teams who are kept from being with their families on Thanksgiving in order to entertain us and provide us with just the distraction we need to keep us from meaningful conversations with our extended families.) Mealtime is often determined when we have decided which of the 3 or 4 games is going to be the real stinker.
The food. The food. It's so good. So sweet. So creamy. So salty. So fattening. And the ideal pre-diet meal, the final binge before starting that diet that will end almost as soon as it's begun, with the first opportunity to dig into the 3-varieties popcorn tin bucket that's made its way into the office.
With so many of us suffering from the obesity epidemic, I hate to put a damper on all the great foods of which you are getting ready to partake, but take a second to think about what you are about to do. For all those who criticize folks who can't go out and just have a good time without some form of getting high involved, is it not possible to enjoy the family gathering without pigging out on all that great food, and all those great smells of Thanksgiving. Focus on the people for a change, not the food.
Here's a little idea: Before you go up to the buffet table, take a medium sized plate, and put a little of each whatever it is you "must" eat on the plate, and tell yourself this is going to be it for you. One level sized plate of food. And that it's going to be enough. Simply because "Just enough is as good as a feast." Then you take your plate, sit down, say a little prayer of gratitude for your little plate of food, and pray that it is going to be enough. And then enjoy the heck out of it. Because you know that what you are eating is very precious, and made the more so because for you, this year, there will be no seconds.
