DeLoreans and the Newlywed 20

I’m the type of reader The Atlantic calls “The Multi-Tasker.” When it comes to books, I’ve always “got quite a lot of irons in the fire all at the same time.” Right now, for example, I’m currently reading six different titles.

One of them being Shauna Niequest’s Bread & Wine: A Love Letter of Life Around the Table. While I’m only 49 pages into this one, I feel like a kindred spirit with its author simply because, like me, she loves to eat. She writes:

Lynne Rossetto Kasper, the host of “The Splendid Table,” says there are two kinds of people in the world: people who wake up thinking about what to have for supper and people who don’t. I am in the first camp, certainly. But it took me twenty years to say that out loud. I’ve always been hungry. Always.

I live in the first camp too. Whenever we go on vacation, one of the first questions I ask Ted is: “I wonder what kind of restaurants they have there?”

While I too am always hungry, I haven’t always exercised common sense when it comes to my eating. Today I’m over at Start Marriage Right talking about one of these seasons. I write:

It didn’t take much effort for me to gain what I label the “newlywed 20.”

What’s that exactly?

Well, that would be the 20 pounds I packed on in my first four months of marriage. No joke.

Yep, I was one of those women who after successfully avoiding the freshman 15 in college, wasn’t so lucky after wedlock. On the bright side, I suppose, most research on this topic points to weight gain as a sign of a happy marriage. So at least those extra pounds spoke well of my new husband Ted and our relationship. They didn’t, however, get along with my pre-wedding jeans.

I go on to share three helpful tips that hindsight has taught me. They’re tips that I wish I could borrow Doc Brown’s DeLorean to go back in time and share with my newylwed self. For some of you, they’ll be no brainers. But for me, what I know now wasn’t clear then.

So head over to Start Marriage Right and read my article, “The Newlywed 20.” Then come back here and let’s chat. I’d love to know this:

If you could go back in time, what helpful advice would you give your newlywed self?