So, uh, that whole New Year's Resolution about eating only healthy food........like, ever.....is not going according to plan. At all. In part because following recipes for dishes like "Vegan Chili" is nearly always an exercise in futility. (If only exercises in futility actually burned calories.......how fine would I be looking then?!) Sure, I can throw together some sprouts and veggies in a baking dish, and drizzle it with something vaguely resembling a tomato-based sauce (there's another aggravating thing about healthy eating.....health food cookbook authors like to advocate "drizzling"......and they spurn words like "saturate" or "drown"! Booooooo!). But do I have to call it "chili"? In fact......I'm sorry, but I refuse to call it "chili." How about I call it "A Big, Stupid Pile Of Vegetables, Which I've Resigned Myself to Eating For Health Purposes" instead? "Chili" is just too misleading. "Chili" is a good time. "Vegan chili"? Not so much.
There are some upsides to this whole experiment. My eating habits have improved. I'm actually ingesting fruits and veg on a daily basis (er.....most days), which is a damn sight better than last year's Token Weekly Carrot Stick.
On the other hand, I was a raging idiot to think I would never eat a cupcake again. Me? I can devote paragraphs, or even pages, to rhapsodizing over what constitutes the perfect chocolate peanut butter cup. (The in-a-nutshell synopsis: Homemade. Using extra creamy, gooey peanut butter.) So, that was a stupid, stupid goal, in retrospect. But I figure if I continue to cut out the midnight snacking, and eat more fruits and veg, and less processed junk food, most of the time, then at least it's a step in the right direction.
Stepping in the wrong direction used to take me to the kitchen at 2 a.m., where I would stand and vow to rid the entire joint of junk food. Using only my mouth. Worse, I would tell myself this exercise in futility (Another one! You see what I mean?) would give me and the rest of the family a clean slate for starting on the path toward healthy, super organic, nearly all-raw food enlightenment the next day! Only...a few days on an all-raw, super organic cleanse invariably sends me peeling out of the driveway in a deathrace derby to the nearest McDonald's. (Which involves a whole lotta near-misses of vehicular homicide, in addition to artery clogging.)
I am still getting the hang of concepts like 'balance' and 'compromise.'
I'm getting back into the regular exercise groove again too, but I'm not sure I have attained the most zen of attitudes there, either. Telling the Wii balance board to "Suck it!" whenever it spits out a Wii Fit Age that is not particularly flattering is probably not setting a good example for wee Z.. So I've modified my fitness goals, too. Stop aiming to sculpt my thighs into twin monuments of chiseled perfection. Start with backpedaling on the insults directed at an inanimate object.
Yep. I'm all about the baby steps.
I keep getting sucked in to watching You Are What You Eat on BBC America. It airs at 1 a.m., which coincides nicely with my insomnia more often than not, but I also recently added it to our DVR record list, so my interest has grown more intentional of late. It features this wee Scottish lady nutritionist named Gillian McKeith who browbeats people into eating healthfully: "Arggggggggggggh! This is broccoli, ya festering flabby maggot, and I'm shovin' it down yer godforsaken gob whether yee like it or naught.....!" (OK - she's marginally more polite than that.....and she's not really a pirate. It's just that my impersonation of a Scottsperson is weak, especially in writing.............)
In each episode Gillian tackles a new reluctant junk food addict and attempts to give them a health makeover. First, of course, she determines the extent to which they are on the cusp of impending death, which invariably correlates with how many gallons of soda and tons of chocolate goodies are being hoarded in their fridges and pantries. (Eh - if this were an accurate assessment, I'd have died long ago. But I understand that she needs to shock people into compliance.)
And in order to estimate how malnourished they are, she proceeds to analyze the tongues, blood, and poo of her clients. It seems a healthy tongue should not have any cracks or muck on it. And a healthy poo shouldn't smell. (That strikes me as a bit odd. There's a reason that Glade doesn't manufacture poo-scented air freshener....I'm sure of it.) What struck me as even odder the first few times I watched this show was that the BBC seemingly can't air unobstructed shots of feces, so the steaming pile has to be blurred out - much as an errant sex organ or brand-name logo on a T-shirt would be. What's so offensive (or trademark infringing) about poo? It's gross, sure....but offensive?
Anyway, I've been a junk and comfort food addict since...um....birth. So one of my New Year's resolutions is to cut back on the junk and dairy, and add more fruits and veg.....and I'm not going to pretend to be excited about it, either. In fact, it sucks. It sucks that vegetables just taste better when slathered in cheese sauce. It sucks that happiness is a giant pan of fresh homemade lasagna. It sucks that I've only just become an expert at making THE perfect chocolate cream pie. Plus nothing sends my eyeballs rolling in automatic-sarcasm mode faster than some health food proponent raving about how good raw foods can taste in their natural state. A little relativity, please. Raw broccoli will never taste as good as s'mores.* Period. (*Unless you add chocolate, graham cracker and melted marshmallows to it. And remove the broccoli.) I mean, I'll eat the freakin' carrot stick already. But you won't hear me saying, "MMMMMMMMMMMMM!" while doing so. (For one thing, the gagging sound would drown out the "MMMMM!" sound.)
I'm not going cold turkey and giving up every fabulous sort of food for all eternity. But I figure having them every day is not really a recipe for glowing good health. I only have that perfunctory five pounds to lose (given my extreme dietary impertinence, it's not fair...I know), but it wouldn't kill me to get back into better shape, anyway. (I've enlisted Wii Fit to achieve that particular end. Status updates on that endeavor forthcoming.) Moreover, I'm sick of being a one-woman phlegm factory, which dairy exacerbates, and which, yes, I've been informed of countless times already, long before Skinny Bitch slinked onto the scene. I'd like to tackle the listless, whiny, low-energy thing I have going on, too. According to Lady McKeith, going healthy on the food front can all but wipe out PMS. I'm skeptical. In fact, hearing that makes me want to wipe out the first passing nutritionist I see with my motorcycle boot.
Plus ultimately, I know I've been setting a bad example on the nutrition front for wee Z. I mean, I feed her all the healthy stuff I'm supposed to feed her. I just don't always eat it myself. And with her exponentially expanding vocabulary, it's only a matter of time before she starts pointing it out to me. Once she adds words like "hypocrite" to her verbal arsenal, I'm screwed.
So, if there's even an iota of truth to all of this hoohah about fruits and veg, it seems like a worthwhile experiment to undertake. But the die-hard junk food addict in me will be kicking and screaming the whole way, all while hurling five-pound, concussion-imparting bags of peanut M&Ms at those people who insist that once you wipe sugar from your diet, you don't even miss it. Liars. Liars!
Stay tuned...............
