Dad Stuff, Part 5: Gambling with Kids

Teaching your kids to gamble is important. Remember that classic episode of Leave it to Beaver where Ward took the Beaver downtown and they threw dice in a dark alley? Gambling is as old as time. I might be joking, but not completely. Maybe this is a Blog entry for another time – the benefits of teaching kids to gamble.

I did, however, make a big wager with my kids. It’s crazy. I threw down the gauntlet I didn’t need to throw down. The stakes…

Dad (that’s me) will not eat after dinner until our vacation in August.

Now my family is on snack-watch and every night they try to tempt me with various goodies and snacks. It has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. That’s not hyperbole.

I’m a late night snacker. On a typical night, after dinner, I’ll have a bowl of chips (300 calories) and two popsicles (75 calories). Or I’ll have half a pint of ice cream (600 calories). If there are cookies, I’ll have three (no idea how many calories because homemade chocolate chip cookies don’t have labels). Or my favorite – a big bowl of stove popped popcorn with butter and salt. I’ve often said I eat in order to have my mouth moving and keep myself awake. I probably should just go to bed. Or do some sit-ups. Or do anything productive besides just stuffing food in my face

I wonder what percentage of people eat in the evenings?

It’s been 14-days since I made this wager against my family. They all bet $20 against me (a beer or two or a drink DO NOT count).

Not eating in the evenings impacts your health. What I’ve noticed is that I am sleeping a hundred times better. That math is perfect. It’s exactly 100 times better. And I’m losing weight and feel better when I wake up.

My life is all about extremes. I do all or nothing. It’s probably why I burnout on half the things I start. I’ll call this Extreme Zero Snacking. It’s good for me, I know it. Just like when I decided rather than eat healthy I would just become vegetarian. Again … all or nothing. Is it OK to call something “Kamikaze” these days? That’s what my plans are. Either I will win this bet against my family and have $80 to spend on something stupid, or I will lose and I will go down in a blaze of glory one night and eat two bowls of chips, a full pint of ice cream, drink pop and gorge on a giant bowl of popcorn (for the record, when I eat a big bucket of salty popcorn I wake up more hungover than if I drink a glass-and-a-half of red wine …FACT).

Updates coming. I have more than a month still to go.

What’s the craziest, dumbest, most-pointless thing you’ve ever committed to for no reason? What are your thoughts on gambling with kids? Do you snack in the evenings?

Also I’m composing this with Google’s Gboard that’s installed on my iPhone and I am dictating into Google Docs. It’s absolutely incredible. The most accurate and FREE dictation software-slash-App I’ve found. This entire Blog entry was dictated into my phone and then I just quick edited it and posted it. Tomorrow I’ll quick give readers a how-to on that.