calories?

Last night I went to the gym by myself for the first time. I played 2 on 2 basketball with three very athletic guys and being very out of shape myself, I was certainly no competition for them, but they humored my interest in playing the game and I lasted for about an hour. Then I headed to the weight-training room which is usually full of intimidating "weight-trainers" and I have very little experience weight-lifting. Last night there were only two guys there and they were busy being serious about their weight-lifting, so I took advantage of the emptiness and tried out all the machines- a little of this, a little of that... it was nice. I went finally to the treadmill, and asked if I could use the T.V. that's mounted above it (ok, I admit, the only reason Nate and I talk about ever using the treadmills is to watch T.V.) I watched the news (I'm generally pretty out of touch with the world), which was interesting for a few minutes. Then I glanced at the treadmill screen. It was telling me about my 'workout' - how fast I was running, what the incline was, how good it was for my heart, and then the word "calories" popped up in front of me and I thought: CALORIES?! I just wanted to laugh out loud. You see, after gaining about 20 lbs my freshman year of college, I began to mildly keep track of calories as I ate and exercised. I watched them when I was pregnant with Will - at first to make sure I didn't overeat, and then the doctors told me I had to eat more and more and more because I wasn't gaining enough weight with him. (He turned out ok anyway- was 8.5 lbs at birth!) and then I quit counting calories.

That was 4 years ago. I haven't even THOUGHT about calories since then. The closest thing I can think of is this past year and how I'd compare milk and food labels to see "how many grams of FAT does it have in it?" ... because our diet here is super lean and I've been desperate to fatten up my little girl, so we now stock up on all the fatty foods we can find and we try our best to get her to eat them heartily. :) It's worlds away from my college days of calorie-counting, and it was just weird to recall a life I can barely remember now.

I imagine that when I move back to the world of great food, I'll count calories again since I'll want to eat tons of everything. But for now, I am appreciating loving rice and lentils and getting to eat as much I like of sweet treats like cake and brownies with full-fat cream on them. Calories...mmmm!