Instantly spend three times longer in the grocery store!

This past weekend I picked up “Eat This, Not That” after listening to all of my co-workers talk about it (I am easily coaxed onto bandwagons). As I move comfortably and sometimes awkwardly through my 20s, I am increasingly more concerned and aware with the food I buy. Everything in my pantry and lunchbox is low sugar, low calorie, whole wheat, high fiber, blah, blah, blah. It’s sorta funny because I don’t even blink on the weekends when pizza is ordered, and high-calorie lunches and dinners are consumed. I swear that 75% of the calories that make me a little squishy come from weekend drinking and eating, but I digress.

During the week, however, I’m usually straight as an arrow with my diet. What caught my interest with this particular “diet” book is that it dissects the labels, ingredients and misnomers in the grocery store. It compares items in every part of the store that you think are healthy vs. what really are healthy. ie: “Healthy” items to avoid. For instance, instead of eating Kellog’s Smart Start Strong Heart cereal (with more than 10 itemized sugars and sweeteners), you should eat Kashi’s Vive cereal. Or that some organic, light, or fat free yogurts contain as much sugar as a scoop of ice cream or Kit Kat. Or how to pick your butter, peanut butter and cheese. It even goes through snack isles, showing the better corn chip, the better cracker, the better hot dog (Kosher beef even beat out turkey!), the better cookie.

See, the food industry has caught on that it’s popular now for items to be healthy and organic, so they “trick” you with false labels, using “light,” “organic” and “healthy” whenever they can, but to keep the taste, they make up for decreased calories by increasing the amount of sugars and additives. “Eat This, Not That” breaks those labels down, dissects condiments and meat, and explains produce, and its nutritional breakdown. The book is fascinating stuff, I tell ya.

There’s only one slight side effect to reading about all of this… Last night I ventured to the grocery store for the first time after finishing the book, and I felt overwhelmed in every isle. Everything was claiming to be healthy, and I had to pick everything up, turn it over, compare ingredients and look for hidden items like “high fructose corn syrup.” I was in every section for a half hour, if not more. I’m pretty sure the people there who caught a glimpse of me picking items up, reading, picking them up again, comparing, thought I was nuts.

I explained the book to someone recently, and they said, “Yeah, but I hesitate and wonder if I really should be worrying about this because I grew up as a kid, eating Top Ramen and Mac n’ Cheese, and I’m fine!”

Good point, I guess. I suppose it’s all relative, and if that helps you feel better after consuming the entire box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese (something I’m known to do on an occasional basis), then FAB-u-LOUS. But I know I feel slightly better watching the chemicals in my food, and if you do to, pick it up.

Currently Feeling: Motivated.
Currently Anticipating: A double date for TheatreSports with Bestie Amanda and her boy tomorrow night, and Super Bowl parties on Sunday!
Currently Needing: To swap out my fiction book right now, I’ve lost interest in “Saving Fish From Drowning,” so haven’t been reading…next is “Save Karyn” one of the books from my favorite blogger, Karyn Boznak at Pretty in the City.

Mama’s gotta eat a cheeseburger, officially

I think I realized today that I am unofficially an emotional eater.

I eat when I’m happy. I eat when I’m drunk. I eat (a lot) when I’m in love. I eat when someone sneezes. Because something even that minute makes me hungry. I eat when I see food ads. I eat when it’s in front of me. I eat when I’m bored. I eat when I’m full. I eat when I’m drunk. (Oh shit. I already put that. I must be drunk). I eat when I’m watching TV or working or typing or reading.

I also eat when I’m stressed.

My boyfriend is going through one of those major life thingies today. (Which I may, or may not, elaborate on later), which has caused a great deal of stress for me today. I tried to put it off by watching CNN and being really excited for America this morning. But even then, I was checking my phone every three minutes. Next I tried reading through the 25+ blog posts in my RSS feeder, while simultaneously checking my phone every five minutes. Then I made a trip on foot to Nordstrom’s to pick up the free make-up that’s been advertised, while checking my phone every two minutes.

I’ve done approximately 4,329 things today except work because I.just.can’t.concentrate. Ever have those days? Sometimes I worry that crane operators, airplane pilots and brain surgeons have those days, and then that’s when I start to panic about driving, flying and cancer. But that’s a whole nother post, saved for when I might want to talk about just how neurotic I can be.

So then finally somewhere between thinking about death by flying or cancer from Web-MDing myself, my boyfriend sends me a text message that’s he’s fine, but “doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Well shit. What am I supposed to do? Sit and continue to worry all day?! So, of course I sent back: “That’s ok! I understand!” But what I really meant was:

Cheeseburger.

Even though I’d already eaten my *meager* lunch of Campbell’s Healthy Request (ie: nothing but broth, that’s why the calories are so low), CHEESEburger was like mentally throbbing through my brain.
Must.eat.cheeseburger.to.survive.
Clearly this need for a cheeseburger is directly related to stress, which clearly makes me an unofficial emotional eater.

So I frantically started Googling “burger” in “said name of my work building downtown.” We have like 201 restaurants and little places to eat here, but NOWHERE that sells an effing cheeseburger.

Come on! Mama’s gotta eat.

Finally, I found a relatively nearby restaurant that sold a $12 cheeseburger because this is THE.RECESSION. and clearly restaurants need customers so bad that they’re discounting everything, or something, and clearly I don’t need to worry about living out of that cardboard box anytime soon. So I ordered and ate the $12 cheeseburger, and all 12 pounds of the fries that came with it.

And now I kinda want to curl up in a ball on my couch and…

EAT.OREOS.

We’ll see if I make it out of this one alive. I could be the next candidate for one of TLC‘s fat shows, yah know. And then you could all talk about how you knew me when I was skinny and how it all started when I became an unofficial emotional eater.

Currently Feeling: Headachy from all the carbs, probably.
Currently Anticipating: Using the free Lacome Fatale mascara I scored today. It’s supposed to make my lashes look 3D?! How do they do that?
Currently Wishing: Bestie Amanda wasn’t in the &%@$# Caribbean. How selfish of her to be vacationing when I need her!

Eat, Eat and Be Merry

Welcome back, Interneters. I know you’re all coming down from your sugar plum dreams and chocolate kisses. I know I’m coming down – or should I say coming UP – from a lot of horizontalness the past week and food hangovers like you would not believe. I’m pretty sure all I can think about right now is how I want my NYE resolution to be NEVER EAT AGAIN. (I write as I eat Fritos’ Honey BBQ Flavor Twists for breakfast).

My Christmas week was pretty standard, (minus the snow totally blowing my usual drive south to my grandmother’s house on Christmas day). I took a mini vaca from work, starting Tuesday with Christmas candy making. I whipped up this wonderful confection:

Let me tell you – this recipe is amazing. If you don’t care that it consists solely of butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and theatre popcorn, then you must try it. I think it’ll be my future Super Bowl party staple.

Christmas Eve my parents have a party every year that always promises lots of laughter. I’m not sure if it’s because of my whacky Magda aunt, or the never-ending supply of Cosmo Chi Chis my dad pours (a Cosmo made with coconut cream and simple syrup). But my Martha Stewartesque mother always whips up a dream Christmas dinner with my favorite thing ever as a centerpiece – a ham from the HoneyBaked Ham Company.

My sister and I then slept in our old upstairs bedrooms like we were 10 and 3 again, waking up to open presents on Christmas morning. Except now there isn’t quite the rush like when we were young. My family started Christmas morning with a new tradition – ebelskivers. Ever heard of them?! I hadn’t. Apparently they make them at a European breakfast place in my sister’s college town that she’s crazy about, so my mom surprised her by buying a special ebelskiver pan and can of mix. Basically, they’re round pancake balls that you can stuff anything into. We got pretty creative, making blueberry, chocolate, marshmallow and even sweet potato ebelskivers (that was my idea, of course), topping them with powder sugar and whipped cream. Mmmm.

Somewhere around 2:30 – all of us still in pajamas – we opened presents and then lounged around until we met my grandmother at China Harbor in the International District for a classic Chinese Christmas evening dinner. Ring a ding a ding dong.

And then, because the snow melted just enough, I redeemed my previously canceled trip to my other grandmother’s house where I continued to eat myself silly and lie horizontally. (Thank god for What Not to Wear marathons. Stacey and Clinton are my best lazy friends.) And of course, no Christmas is complete without my thoughtful gifts from that side of my family – bubble bath, shower gel, body spray, lotion, more shower gel, a candle, some bath beads and bath gel. And now I’m good for another year.

Hope you all had a very merry, horizontally stuffed Christmas.

Currently Feeling: Ready to take the new year by storm.
Currently Anticipating: Finally seeing my BF and celebrating our Christmas together.
Currently Hating: Food.

This is why I call my boyfriend a Fat Kid

The above is what’s currently in his freezer. Have you ever seen a more ridiculously disgusting display of junk food? In case you can’t make it out through the crappy, pixilated camera pic, that’s 1 Costco-size box of Eggos, 1 bag of “chicken fries,” (seriously?!), 1 bag of honey bbq chicken wings, 1 Tony’s pizza, 1 box of bacon wrapped scallops and 1 box of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches. He actually eats this crap. I would give my first born child to have a male metabolism.
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Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

Close your eyes and repeat, “Bacon is amazing.”

I’m back on the wagon.

I’ve fallen off for quite some time now. I seem to have vaguely remembered making a previous statement about not turning into one of “those girls.” The ones who get completely comfortable in a relationship and pack on the pounds. I’m not there yet, but I feel like I’m teetering. It has nothing to do with getting “too comfortable” and everything to do with feeling too tired and stretched too thin, and wanting to comfort myself with pizza on the couch with my boyfriend. Or enjoying far too many fancy dinners out and not enough planned dinners in. Or staying at his house, which is a fat-kid factory—Doritos, Totino Party Pizzas, Mac ‘n’ Cheese, chocolate cake and ice cream—and a bacon, egg and waffle breakfast cooked every Saturday and Sunday morning.

Who knows. Tomato, Tamato. But, I’m back on the wagon.

Of course, when you’re a woman who’s fallen off the wagon, it takes precisely one day to decide everything that might be able to instantly solve your 5- to 10-pound problem. “I’m going to buy a yoga mat!” “Sign up for a new gym!” “Cut out carbs and sugar for two weeks!” “Start running again now that the weather is nice!” “Avoid all the candy and crap at work!” “Open my cookbooks again and make something!” “Buy the latest, stupidest diet craze book on the New York Times Bestseller List!”

If you’re me, you do all seven within a 24-hour period.

As I previously mentioned, I’ve been reading, “Skinny Bitch.” Usually I avoid these type of books like the plague because they’re mostly chocked full of common sense. And I abhor any sort of quick-fix diet that girls think will solve all their problems. (Such as the cleansing bullshit or cabbage soup thing.)

But for some reason I’m reading this damn book, and I really wish I wouldn’t have even started it. It has some really good stuff in it—like all those aspartame facts that I was just dying to read. But, it also has a lot of really gross details about why you shouldn’t be consuming meat or any animal products—even milk.

Some who’ve read the book call it, “Vegan propaganda.” But, whether it’s half-truths or whole truths, suddenly the prospect of meat is grossing me out. I was hoping to read this book to maybe curb my feelings of Hawaiian pizza on Friday nights, Taco Bell at 3 a.m. or the occasional Dick’s Deluxe. You know—just refocus my eating habits and reiterate that putting this kind of crap in your mouth does eventually add up. (It’s amazing that someone as intelligent as me has to spend $14.99 for a little dose of common sense.)

I didn’t buy this book so my stomach could turn every time I added ham or turkey bacon to my morning scramble, or chicken to my salads.

I mean, H-christ. All I think about is the slaughterhouse details I read on the bus this morning on my way to work.
The contaminated meat, piss, puke and fecal matter, slicing off a pig’s face and throwing salt on it, cutting off a cow’s head, hanging it up by a hook in it’s butt or boiling chickens—all while they’re each alive.

It’s enough to really kill a lifelong bacon craving, that’s for sure.

Currently Feeling: Sassy in my new fuchsia work dress and black trench!
Currently Anticipating: Leaving work at a decent time tonight.
Currently Hating: Cell phone companies—they really blow!

Departmental Fattening

I’m trying really, really hard to watch my carb and sugar intake. Blah, blah, blah. Story of my life. But really, I don’t want to look like a rolly polly stuffed sausage in my Halloween costume or my super slutty Heido-Ho, German Beer Maid costume that I’m sporting at Leavenworth’s Oktoberfest this year. So, this of course requires a little “back on track” thinking.

Like maybe I should stop eating Mac ‘n’ Cheese or Eggs Benedict for every meal on the weekends, drinking a case of beer on Fridays and Saturdays, helping myself to the candy bowl DIRECTLY behind my desk, three times a day. Or stop dreaming about Dick’s cheeseburgers and strawberry shakes. Or maybe teriyaki, or two soft tacos from Taco Bell. Or Spaghetti Vesuvius from the Old Spaghetti Factory. Or a big plate of cheesy enchiladas, chips and salsa, and a margarita from Jalisco’s.

Oh really, the list goes on.

They say the average person makes 200 food-related decisions a day.

So, here’s what would help me decide the good instead of the bad:

Stop bringing effing cookies and candy and treats and licorice and chocolate bars and Jelly Bellys, and fruit tortes and birthday cake and baby shower cake and marshmallow Peeps and blueberry pound cake and Oreo cream cakes and…

Not gonna lie. I just got up, mid-sentence, to go grab some Australian strawberry licorice that is sitting on the coffee stand before I finished the list.

… and Dove chocolate candies and brownies and butterscotch oatmeal cookies and mini Kit Kats and Twix.

(That was literally a list of everything that’s been available in my office in the last two weeks.)

My ass is going to grow to three times the size it is if you don’t stop. You damn coworkers.

Eight-hundred extra sugar-induced calories and eight hours sitting in a chair in front of a computer do not a sexy single 20-something make.

Currently Feeling: Pleasantly happy this week. Maybe I’m on mood elevators.
Currently Anticipating: Fremont Oktoberfest this weekend! My FAVORITE beer festival.
Currently Wondering: If I have the capacity to writer for ANOTHER blog. The topic that’s been presented to me? Dating. Go figure.