On a trip to PEI in September 2011 Darcy and I discovered COWS ice cream. Rated the best ice cream in the entire world it had us at first lick. I am ashamed to admit we went to COWS every afternoon for eight days. We quickly became COWS connoisseurs. We learned not every tub was created equal. Some left the factory filled with a generous swirl of caramel and nuts while others were heavy on ice cream but a little shy on filler. We learned to peer through the glass case to see how the day’s ice cream looked before making the difficult choice between our favoured flavours; Cowie Wowie or Mooey Gooey. Some days Cowie Wowie was decidedly lacking in wowie and on others Mooey Gooey was more mooey than gooey. On one dark, desperate afternoon we turned to Udder Fludder for our fix when neither Cowie Wowie nor Mooey Gooey met our lofty palate expectations. But have our fix we did and when it was good it was very, very, good and when it was bad it was only mind blowing delicious.

The reason COWS ice cream tastes so good is because it is made with real cream, eggs and sugar. The reason I gained eight pounds in eight days was because it was made with real cream, eggs and sugar. Eight pounds gained despite walking a five mile circuit that took us along the Charlottetown boardwalk, up through a ritzy area of the city and then back to our hotel every day.

It took me three years to lose 20 pounds and only eight days to gain almost half of it back. Metabolism is not kind to the aging body. Last January I made a resolution to walk 1000 miles and not only return to my pre-COWS weight but hopefully lose another 10 pounds putting me at my ideal weight for the first time in well, ever, unless you count my early teens.

I didn’t quite hit my goal. Instead I managed to walk 730 miles and lose six of the eight pounds. If you do the math I walked two miles a day and lost half a pound a month. Heavy sigh. And heavy bum. And heavy stomach. And heavy hips. Ah well, slow and steady wins the race and all that. While I would prefer to drop the works in a week like they do on TV, they say if you lose weight slowly it is more likely to stay off. That’s good news, since it would be hard to lose weight any slower than me.

I’m just grateful they don’t have a COWS outlet anywhere nearby or I’d be as big as one; a cow that is. Or who knows, maybe the outlet too. I guess it would depend on the size of the building. And on how much ice cream I ate. I used to be a Haagen-Dazs girl until COWS claimed my taste buds. On two occasions Darcy swears he heard me mutter, “Mooey Gooey please, one scoop” in my sleep. But I know he’s lying. If it were true I would have asked for two scoops. Or maybe one scoop of Mooey Wooey and a second scoop of Cowie Wowie, but definitely not a single scoop.

Darcy snapped a picture of me with the COWS cow. By the crazed look on my face I am clearly ramped up on ice cream. I stuck it on the fridge for the holidays. I put it there to serve as a reminder how – in my case - a week of indulgence can take a year to shed. Some of the days it helped keep me out of the baking. And some days it made me wonder about buying a cow and making ice cream. Ah well, a new year, a new resolution and here I go once again...moving towards my goal at a blinding snail’s pace.

Shannon McKinnon is a weekly columnist from Northern BC.  You can read past columns by visiting www.shannonmckinnon.com