At Last -- My Airport Photo Essay

JFK Airport, Dec. 23, 2009

I do love the holidays, but thank the great diet gods they are now over!

I know airlines are all about making people "fly the friendly skies," but do they have to force feed us in the terminals as well?

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that as airlines have cut back on serving food and meals on flights, they've filled their terminals with umpteen million gazillion places to stuff your face? (At very high prices, I might add.)

I feel that marketers have gotten really savvy about pushing people's buttons to consume, consume, consume. And I'm talking food specifically.

As I walked the gauntlet of choices in JFK this December, I really started to feel a sensory overload --- actually a sensory assault, I think. Everywhere I glanced I was prompted to eat, and eat, and eat.

Take a look. These are just a few of the pics I snapped just as I strolled from one end of the terminal to another (just one terminal, not the entire JFK airport). About every 400 feet, there was a different option beckoning.

This one above almost got me. I'm a sucker for the faux-French bistro thing. Marketing...it's ALLL about the marketing. There were at least five full-on restaurants like this in the one small terminal, not to mention a huge food court and about a half-dozen small deli-like shops.

Even at the far end of the terminal, where people are at gates and about to board, you can grab a last-minute high-calorie snack for your flight.

At the computer stations so handily placed along the main walkway, you can't escape the presence of food. God forbid you should think too hard and suffer a blood-sugar drop.

I'll admit I'm very susceptible to this kind of spontaneous placement. To see food is to want to eat it, for me.

In fact, one of the most eye-opening tools for me in the beginning of my weight loss journey was writing down everything I ate -- and everytime I was tempted to eat something.

I was shocked to see how often I responded to external prompts to eat -- without ever checking in with myself first to see if I was even hungry. Often I wasn't even fully aware of what I was doing. I'd walk by a bagel shop and smell them and think, "Oh, a bagel, yeah I could eat one of those -- and they're pretty healthy. Much better than a huge muffin."

And without thinking about it a second longer, boom -- that bagel was consumed, probably with a creamy spread. 400 calories in the gullet, and no conscious thought of having just eaten something.

Although I didn't do great at my parents house over Xmas, I did navigate the outer world much better than I ever have before.

My No. 1 Rule from 2009 that I want to take with me to 2010, and apply even more strongly than ever:

NO EATING IF YOU ARE NOT TRULY HUNGRY.