Last week: 432 lbs.

Start (Jan. 2): 444 lbs.

Total lost: 14 lbs.

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One of my friends from high school — Tupper Lake Class of 1987 — spent more than two hours on Super Bowl Sunday cooking meals ahead of time for the week, prepping muffins and dinners for her husband and son and another set of healthier options for her own diet.

This was an attempt to try and eat better. “NEED to lose weight!!” she wrote on her Facebook page, accompanied by several photos of the food she had cooked, including banana muffins for her husband and son and egg/cheese/turkey bacon muffins for her. She’s trying a low-carb diet.

“My husband and son won’t eat most of this so I end up cooking 2 meals each night,” she wrote. “This was exhausting.”

I love the fact that she did this, and it is inspiring. I’ve done my share of meal prep work for the week, usually on a Sunday, and I’ve always eaten healthier meals when I’ve taken the time to do it. Moreover, I’ve lost weight in the process.

The trouble is that I don’t do it often enough — for the simple fact that life gets in the way, juggling work, family, household chores, etc. Yet even if I do it once a month, it’s better than not doing it at all. For the people who have found a way to make weekend “healthy meal” prep a weekly occurrence, kudos! And keep up the good work.

The fact that my friend — I’ll call her Michele since that’s her name — cooked her healthy meals on Super Bowl Sunday further shows her dedication. Not that the Super Bowl is the best thing since sliced bread, but because it is one of America’s biggest food holidays.

When I went shopping at Price Chopper on Saturday, I could not escape the Super Bowl. Between the specials on Super Bowl-style food — chicken wings, chili, chips, etc. — and in-store advertising, I was getting in the mood to party even though I had no plans to watch the big game or go to a party. Other than football and commercials, the Super Bowl is all about food and alcohol — and consuming as much of it as possible, whether it’s at home alone or with friends and family or at a party.

For this reason, I hate the Super Bowl. I understand that certain cultures have holidays that feature food components, many of them religious in nature, but a good old American holiday designed to sell as much food and alcohol as possible — for a nation getting fatter every day — is absurd.

That’s one reason I hate Valentine’s Day, another good old American holiday designed to sell as much chocolate as possible.

In any case, celebrating with food is not bad by itself. We all do it now and then, and we need the release. It’s healthy to give ourselves permission to treat ourselves, even though I often feel guilty afterward.

But institutionalizing food holidays — mainly for the benefit of Big Food — is not healthy for our nation. Yes it’s the American way, and there’s no way of stopping it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Food holidays are on the calendar, and they are in our hearts. That means they are endless. The person who is truly trying to lose weight needs to meet these food holidays head-on and deal with them in their own way.

For me, that meant I stopped watching football every weekend. I used to be part of the football-guessing crew on the Adirondack Daily Enterprise staff. Our picks would be published every week during NFL season. Soon after signing up, I began buying junk food every week for my Sunday football-watching sessions to see how my picks were doing. This was not healthy at all, so I stopped.

The obvious food holidays on the calendar include New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Then there are the food holidays that are in our hearts. These are the ones that we either make up ourselves or our friends and family make up for us.

There are birthdays and anniversaries. We make up food holidays when something is worth celebrating, such as a raise at work, a promotion or the end of a months-long project. Did you have a book published? Is the Mrs. pregnant? Did you get a new smartphone? Those are worth a food holiday, right? I’m sure that when this very long winter is over, many people will feel like celebrating with food and drink.

Whether we like it or not, food holidays are here. It’s what we do with them that will make or break our attempts at losing weight. For many, that will mean going against social norms, even at the risk of offending someone along the way. If they really care for you, they’ll understand.