Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

Day one, and the eating is easy. I have no delusions¹ about this. Day one is always easy. The good news is that I didn’t swing too far to any kind of extreme today. I went to work, at regular but unplanned intervals I got a little hungry, and then I ate. It was as simple as that. I didn’t swing to one extreme (obsessively tracking, counting, and calculating) or the other (piously bemoaning my hunger and pitying myself for having to avoid cookies).

The thing is that I didn’t have time this morning to compulsively pack a lunch and a dinner before I left for work. In the past, I have been very good with my bento boxes and my tupperwares and plastic forks, portioning everything out ahead of time, chopping it neatly into bite-sized chunks and packing it like a food artiste. That didn’t happen today. Instead, I had to wing it with a frozen entree that I bought from Whole Foods and an apple. At work, an intern welcome lunch yielded extra sandwiches, and I took a small one. I also had a helping of their broccoli slaw, but kept it small. Not ridiculously small. Just small. I just didn’t overdo it. I didn’t obsess. I made ballpark estimates in my points tracker, and then I went back to work.

For snack, the apple sounded fine but I was in the mood for something salty. I went to the vending machine (at work they are “new and improved and supposedly healthy” snacks thanks to our utterly intolerable medical director) and got a bag of Baked Hot Cheetos. They’re a far cry from the organic, ecologically-packaged, preservative-free frozen entree bought from Whole Foods, but they totally hit the spot. My teenaged clients all seem to be hooked on Hot Cheetos and I can see why. Pairing them with the apple, I got a 5-point combo of salt and sweet, and then I chugged along through til the end of the day (and the organic, ecologically-sound dinner) on a happy cloud of red dye #5 and preservatives. I licked my fingers until the tips turned red. Vending machine goodness!

After the entree, I had a little dessert of Kozy Shack Rice Pudding in a single serving cup. I’ve been a fan of Kozy Shack since the 90’s when I was a missionary, and it is a comfort food I can get behind. They use whole ingredients and no preservatives. Just like granny used to make, except portioned out and sealed with a tin foil top.

Maybe the whole point of this is that I don’t need to get obsessive about things. It’s good to eat whole foods, yes, and organic ones. It’s good to get up at 5 a.m. and to spend your whole weekend preparing delicious meals. It does make your life easier when you’re trying to be better about what you eat. Unfortunately, it is also a pace that is hard to keep up. Sometimes, circumstances lead you eat prepared foods whose photos can easily be found on the internet. And that’s okay, too.

The place where I traditionally trip up is in the control-freak element. If I haven’t sliced the apples myself and baked the crust, the pie is not for diet consumption. The pie is The Enemy Who Plots My Destruction. Of course, this is not true. How could it be true? The enemy who plots my destruction is the trigger inside of me that doesn’t know how to eat a reasonable piece of pie. The one who needs to eat 3 slices. Huge ones. With ice cream. And maybe 4 slices, or whatever it takes for me to feel sick because that’s the only thing that seems to be able to slow me down.

1. I also have no delusions about the idea that I will be able to write a detailed and illustrated entry logging what I eat each and every day for the rest of my life, but for today it is kind of fun. [↩]