Tom was working late, so I decided to treat myself to dinner out. I wanted a glass of wine, too, so I chose one of our favorite local places. I sat at the bar, settled in with my book and ordered the red that they had on special. I decided on their house salad, which is simple, but delicious. Mixed greens are topped with shredded provolone cheese and thinly sliced hard salami. The dressing is a balsamic vinaigrette. As I finish my salad, I order a second glass of wine. As I get to the end of the glass, I finish the chapter I’ve been reading right before the lights dim for the evening crowd. It was the perfect amount of food and I am completely satisfied. I don’t even want to drive home. The meal has been such a pleasure that it makes me want to curl up in the back seat and just savor the moment. It isn’t terribly often that a meal hits just that perfect balance, but when it happens, it is almost as good as sex.
Unfortunately, I was only able to savor that feeling for as long as it took for me to realize the impact that that much cheese and salami would have on my pants. Yes, I’m going to complain about my weight some more.
My relationship with food has never been an easy one. My mother dieted often and with mixed results, so I just assumed that that is what one did. I remember being eight or nine years old, certainly not in need of weight reduction, making deals with myself about what I was allowed to eat during the day. My menu would generally consist of an apple. I had zero perception of calories or nutrition beyond the food pyramid, which had taught me that fruit was good. By mid-morning I would be extremely hungry and eat the apple. Twenty minutes later, I would be hungry again, so I’d have another apple, thinking that two apples instead of one couldn’t be that bad. Shortly thereafter I would decide that one cookie wouldn’t hurt. I would have an Oreo, find it delicious and eat six or seven more. Once the Oreos were eaten, I would assume that there was no way I could consider the day a diet day and have a bologna sandwich and maybe a couple of Fruit Roll-Ups. My metabolism put up with that nonsense for years.
In my early twenties, I put on forty pounds pretty quickly. When I made up my mind to lose some of that, it only took me about a year to shed thirty pounds. At that point, I did know a thing or two about nutrition and changed my diet. I also joined a gym. Hey, that was easy!
In my late twenties, I put all that weight back on. Recently, I’ve added even more. Part of my problem is that I’m just not active enough. A larger part of the problem is the dinner that I mentioned above. I just get so much pleasure (in the short run) from delicious food. If Total with skim milk was even half as tasty as hash browns, I’d be in business. I hate having to decide between delicious and nutritious.
I do cook a lot and enjoy doing so, so I know that you don’t always have to give up one for the other. I made pork loin with apples, raisins and onions in reduced white wine the other night that was amazing and calorically sound. Unfortunately, I don’t always have that kind of time to prepare for dinner. I also have trouble finding that sort of thing on a restaurant menu. Healthy menu items are either not healthy at all (grilled veggies actually do lose some of their nutritional value when they have butter and asiago cheese sauce on them, hmmm) or have no appeal. I could grill a chicken breast and steam some broccoli at my house in less time for a fraction of the price. Plus, it isn’t any fun to go out and watch other people eat their bleu cheese burgers and loaded fries when I’m choking on a dry turkey burger with a side of cucumber slices.
I don’t really know what else to say about a topic that I feel like I’ve already exhausted. I can’t even wind things up with a resigned promise to myself to do better, show up at the gym and stick to those Weight Watchers points. I either need to get used to me just the way I am or discover some new way of approaching my issues.
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