Dude! It's Just Food!

About three weeks ago my wife and I decided it was time! So I went to the store and a couple of our favorite fast food joints and got all of our favorite things to have what we have dubbed an "Ingest Fest". We looked at it as a sort of Death Row, last meal kinda thing. I know, I know what an awful way to look at getting on the road to a better life. But man! When you are gonna give up all the things that got you through sleepless nights of worry and stress it's kinda traumatic. I guess I could find a better way to describe in "Ingest Fest".
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Well...you can look at it like marriage. Not sure if this is a better analogy or if it will get me in a lot of trouble, but what the hell. Let's go down that road for a second.

With marriage, once your committed, that's it! No takesee backsees unless you go through all that divorce and heartache crap, and let's face it, if we knew it was gonna go there we would never had gotten married in the first place. The reality is we don't know where it's gonna go. All we can do is just trust in our partners, talk it out when there are problems and be prepared for the long haul. You can't go around sampling the buffet anymore. Unless your swingers. Then...well...hmmmmm, that sounds kinda cool though. I'll have to talk to the wife about that one.

Anyway! You decided that you are gonna be good with this one person for as long as you can hold it together so the night before the wedding you have a night out on the town and visit all your old lovers and find a couple of new ones, you know, just to get it out of your system. Depending on the person, that could be a long night!

So we did the deed Sunday, and the next day went shopping to fill the house with all the right kind of foods and healthy snacks. We got fancy too, thinking we would have the time to cook like gourmets ( the result of watching too many iron Chef marathons). Our fridge was packed, which had been a rare occurrence up to this point, much to the chagrin of our children.

What did we need to stock the kitchen for? We had fast food and pizza delivery! Nothing to eat? Let's go out! No clean dishes (we don't have a dishwasher and yes, that lazy)? Screw it! Let's go out! Too hot in the house to cook (we don't have air conditioning in a city that gets up to 106 degrees in the shade during the summer)? Pile in the car! Not only is it calorically devastating, but financially draining to say the least. We also got pretty sick of it too. There are only so many crappy meals you can eat before it catches up with you.

So the kitchen got cleaned up, we dusted off the pots and pans, then got down to the task at hand. Retraining ourselves how to eat and trying to figure out how to cook. My wife and I were kids when we had kids and got married. We never got out of that mind set of eating like teenagers. Sad but true. It has taken us 20 years to grow up and eat the way we need to eat. Better late than never I guess.

We spent a pretty penny that day and while the kitchen was now stocked, we had a house full of people that did not know how to ration and eat proper portions. I am not talking about my wife and I. I am talking about our kids and their friends. Even though it was healthy food, which they generally shun, they still devoured it.

My wife and I have been, like many I am sure, financially challenged. Funds are scarce and needless to say things from a food stand point got pretty bad. We almost got Donner Party desperate! Ok, no! Gross! Try to delete that image from your head. Maybe not that desperate, but we did get desperate enough to go foraging through the cabinets for anything edible that was somewhat healthy.

Like most normal people, we have a lot of food stuffs in the kitchen that have a shelf life of forever. All kinds of things hidden in places you never really look until you are desperate enough to dig for them. It got so bad that we started to actually dig! Let me tell you it is amazing what you can throw together for dinner when you need to and you are still being aware of what you put in your body. Regardless of the situation though, we managed to make reasonably healthy meals and stay on track. That was a miracle for sure. Fortunately we had a lot of frozen fish an chicken that went unnoticed in our freezer. Plus, eggs are cheap.

Now I have to admit, that much like getting tired of eating the same old fast food all the time, eating the same old healthy stuff all the time is just as much a struggle. After all how many times a day can you eat egg whites and a slice of whole wheat bread. Aside from salt and pepper, we didn't even have anything to dress it up. Just the food in all it's naturally healthy glory. At times that was what we were eating all day and at some point my taste buds began to revolt and started sending the wrong signals to my brain.

I started thinking back to the "Ingest Fest" still fresh in my mind. Then I started to think about the tastes and smells of the foods I had said goodbye to when I put my foot on this path. What's worse is my taste buds started to remind my brain about my childhood and all the issues that came with that whole thing (If your new to my blogs, read the one titled Holy Caloric Intake Fatman! It will explain everything). They taunted and teased my brain and at one point even flipped him the bird as he tried really hard to stay the course. So here I am faced with all these triggers firing all these bullets at me at one time and my brain is screaming for relief from the constant badgering of those little bastards!

As I lay naked and shivering on the kitchen floor, in the fetal position, my will to live puffed it self up and gave my brain the biggest bitch slap I think it has ever received. The kind of bitch slap that makes your teeth rattle! At that moment my will to live shouted "Dude! Tell those pisants to go to hell! It's just food! try real hard to listen to the other parts of your body that are pleading with you not to give in!"

"Your stomach is full of nutritious food and is totally satisfied. Your waistline is digging all the new room it's got since you lost 10 pounds. Your circulatory system praises the fact you walk everyday and your kidney's are stoked about the water you've been drinking religiously. Your eyes love the fact that they will get to see your wife and kids for a few more years because you are changing your life. Your liver is loving the fact you cut back on the booze and drugs, and then there's your heart. Your heart gets stronger everyday because of the good things you have been doing for it."

Well my brain got the picture and found the strength to beat my taste buds into submission. He opened up a big 'ol can of whoop ass and went totally ballistic. After all my brain's big and my taste buds are small. Why would he let little insignifcant things get in the way of keeping the rest of my body happy.

Everyday my brain will remember the promise my ears heard my mouth speak when I decided to change my life. "It's time to get busy living!" And everyday it will remember when my will to live said "Dude! It's just food."