Hello again.  Thanks for coming back.  The hot tea is in the pot and the chocolate chip cookies are on the plate.  So let’s have our second conversation.

Getting right to the point–why are all the foods we really enjoy on that list of those Not Good For You?  Of course I am thinking specifically of the cookies right now.

The word other than cookies that I mention a lot in my book, “Ticked Off And Tickled About It,” are the words “mother and/or mom.”  And mine fits right into our little chat here about foods that are not on the food triangle or circle or whatever shape the food police have come up with lately.

Mom lived to be ninety-eight years old.  She did that in spite of the fact that she loved sweets and ate a lot of them.  She hated vegetables and ate as few of them as she could get away with.  Exercise should only be walking, was her idea, and it should only be conducted if you needed to get from one place to another.  She also liked a glass of wine now and then.  However, what got her in the end was that she smoked up until the last eight years of her life.  So she ended up on oxygen.  The woman was otherwise so healthy that she probably would have lived to at least 100.

Anyway, it was most likely that those good ole genes (not the blue ones) kept her alive together with the fact that she nearly always had a very positive outlook.  She also had a great sense of humor.  She couldn’t remember how to tell a joke, but she was always making people laugh without half trying.

Since writing my book, I have learned so many interesting facts about laughter.  I knew of course that it has been called “the best medicine” though I don’t know who first said that.  Not only are there websites and blogs and books about how much laughing can keep you healthy, but I even found out that there are many Laughter Clubs connected to Yoga all over the world.

Personally, Pilates has always been my exercise choice, besides a daily half hour walk.  When I was in my thirties and forties, I ice and roller skated a lot.

The great thing about exercise, if you want to keep your weight down, is that it burns off the calories you gain by treating yourself to a chocolate chip cookie at the end of your workout.  Works for me.

Now it’s your time to comment.  I can’t wait to see what you have to tell me.

COMING NEXT:  I Love To Watch Kids Laugh