Off the Wagon

And man, am I ever. Last time I wrote about quitting sugar forever. I did pretty well, too, for about a month. Then I realized that I hadn't really lost any weight, or noticed any other changes other than that the one time I cheated to eat birthday cake with Robert and Jason, I felt like total shit all night long. I can't remember exactly when I decided to eat sugar again, just to suffice to say that I did. And I'm done playing around. Girl Scout cookies? Donuts? Peeps? Bring that shit on. I still have moderation issues, and probably always will- you should have seen me tearing into those Thin Mints the other night like a hungry dog on a hambone. I'm now trying to limit my sugar intake to every other day, so that I'm getting roughly half the sugar/calories I would be getting. It's a start.





Something I Never Would Have Touched with a Ten Foot Pole that I Now Worship


Last week I was making one of my many trips to the supermarket and wandered into the natural foods/fake meat/crunchy people section, as I often do. I almost never stop to browse the first aisle, where they keep all of the body builder bars and protein powders- mostly because I am still working my way through the big cannister of chocolate protein powder that I bought 2 years ago. But I had recently read something about egg white protein powders, blah blah, and wanted to see just how overpriced they were. It was there that I saw the rack of Cliff Bars.



I never would have eaten these things about a year ago. First off, they say 'snack' to me, and I never was a big snacker- and really, I'm still not. I've pretty faithfully done the "4 small meals" thing for years, mostly because I find that snacking quite often makes me even hungrier. Second, even if I would eat them as a snack, I have this weird thing about '200 calories or less' for a snack, because otherwise you might as well just add something and make it a meal. Cliff Bars have between 220 and 260 calories per bar. That just seems like a lot for something you can finish in about 7 bites. As a matter of fact, I bet that if a year ago I saw you eating a Cliff Bar and I knew you weren't about to go run a marathon, I'd slap it out of your hand and into the gutter.

But there they were in the store, on sale, $10 for 10. And they were in so many delicious flavors. White chocolate macadamia nut. Maple nut. Peanut toffee buzz. Chocolate brownie. I couldn't take it. I had to buy them. And now I'm addicted. I can totally rationalize my decision, too. First off, for the same calories as a candy bar, you get (in general) 20% of your daily fiber and 22% of your daily protein (PS- always eat a protein with your carbs. Always.) This also makes them a great breakfast, especially for me- now that I'm back to my job at the historical society I'm finding myself constantly rushing to get out the door, leaving no time for a sit down breakfast, or even anything that needs heating up (big change from the Children's Museum, where I had a microwave right on my dressing table and was never more than an hour away from a break to eat.)

I really like Cliff Bars because they make me feel healthy. Maybe it's the little rock climber man on the package. With all that delicious, peanut buttery protein in my tummy, I too could climb a rock! They make me want to go camping. Of course, for me, camping is an excuse to smoke and drink wine and play cards and listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd and go swimming topless, not to rock climb or anything, but still, I could enjoy these whilst in a tent. They also burn pretty slowly, so I'm not ravenous by lunchtime. They're also surprisingly low fat, which I've said before isn't a huge deal to me, but that's just another reason why they are far superior to Snickers. If you love yourself, you will go buy a Cliff Bar.


Another Foray into the World of Calorie Free

I've made the ill advised journey down the 'sugar free' aisle at the grocery store many times, but I thought I had learned my lesson when I had the misfortune to try the sugar free caramel syrup. Well, I clearly don't learn, because today I purchased a jar of Walden Farms Marshmallow Dip. Last weekend some friends and I were discussing our favorite binge foods, and one of them was marshmallow creme. That shit is so good, but damn, is it LETHAL. So how could I turn down marshmallow dip that claims to be calorie free? That's right, no calories. I don't even know how that's possible. It's like a dream. So I bought it. Of course, I had to buy graham cracker sticks to go along with it.

You guys are so lucky that I sacrificed myself so that you wouldn't have to. This stuff is NASTY. It tastes like congealed sugar free vanilla coffee creamer, and has about that consistency. It tastes nothing like a marshmallow, I'll tell you that much. Luckily, the cinnamon flavoring in the graham crackers covered up the foulness of the dip, and Lord knows I'll probably give it another shot, but good Lort. Don't waste your money. I feel so bad for diabetic people. They have no choice but to eat this crap.

That's all for now! What calorie free things have you tried?

No more sugar EVER!

Happy New Year, all. I spent mine at a punk bar and then at a swanky hotel party and finally in bed with two of my gays watching Sondheim- the common events of my life, all compressed neatly into six hours. I already had one resolution- to learn to read music and play piano (not that I feel the need to do any of these things well, but I do a damn mess of singing so it's time I learn a little.) I think last year's were to get more sleep (which I do- I just can't hang like I used to in my younger days), to quit smoking (yeah, that happened) and to eat healthier. I definitely ate healthier this year than I ever have before, but I still have this nasty habit of overdoing it. I think I have gluttony or greed issues. I can't be content with one piece of pizza or one scoop of ice cream- I have to eat it until I'm full and couldn't eat another bite. This is why I tend to cook just enough for one (or 3, if I'm feeding the family.) But I realize my worst trigger, and now that I have seen the light, I know the truth and wonder why I was blind for so long. So I bit the bullet.

I gave up sugar.

I told this to a friend last night and his reply was, "We need sugar to live." Well, I know that, but it's way more dramatic to say, "I gave up sugar" than "I gave up dessert-y type things." Which is actually what I mean. I am powerless over desserts, especially cake, candy, cupcakes and cookies, and especially when they're at home because I can eat as many as I want without the waiter staring at me like I'm a fat ass. Don't judge me because I'm fat, dude. Judge me because of my horrible habit of calling waitstaff 'honey.'

I first discovered the secret to not binging on sugar over Christmas, when I made all my Christmas yummies but did not partake in them. Except for that one time when Bill and I get all drunk and maudlin at the bar and the only thing that could console us was to eat a few handfuls of ginger cookies. But anyway, I knew that if I had one white chocolate raspberry bar, I would not be satisfied until I had five. So I just didn't eat them at all.

I've read before that if you can go a week without eating refined sugar, you won't crave it anymore. I don't really crave sugar so much as once I put it in my mouth, I can't stop myself. It's kind of like smoking in a bar. It's really hard, once you've lit up one cigarette, to keep yourself from pretty much chain smoking when the opportunity presents itself. If you don't want to chain smoke, it's better to just avoid it altogether in those situations. So I've given it up, cold turkey.

The problem is that this means I can't ever have refined sugar again. Again, like smoking, once you've quit you can't just casually pick it back up and expect to not be buying a pack the next morning. So I shall not be tempted. A few weeks ago I gave up tonic after I was horrified to learn it contained just as much sugar as regular Coke- now it's strictly gin and soda for me. So that was a start. Now my go-to stuff for craving sweets is my beloved Coke Zero, jelly or jam on toast in the mornings, honey, and fruit with Cool Whip. It's actually not so very bad- I've convinced myself that since I don't do desserts anymore, I can be more flexible with my 'real' food, so if I want bacon on my salad, it's cool, or cheese fries, that's cool, too. It's a fuckin free for all! Except no desserts. We'll see how long I can keep this up- I've already noticed the return of my insatiable craving for peanut butter, which is probably largely because of the sugars in it. But I've gone a week now with no desserts, so I have some hope.

But perhaps I'm going about this wrong. Sugar can be a great diet dodge, so says this ad, and who am I to question the wisdom of the 1960s diet industry?



On denying oneself

Oh, forcing myself to obey a strict set of rules always motivates me. Thus, I have been inspired to detox. I love detoxing, or else, I love the busy work of choosing food and feeling all righteous because I'm drinking water and the inevitable debauchery that follows when the detox is over.

Recently, I was rereading Skinny Bitch, which I now regard as largely the Bible for aspiring anorexics, meaning the vast majority of it is utter crap. The stuff about the horrible conditions that farm animals are raised in and all of the scary hormones in our food is absolutely true, but the idea that you should wait until you're starving to eat in the morning or at lunch time, or that most people actually eat too much protein, or that a big plate of vegetables for every meal is adequate caloric intake is all total bullshit. The main goal of the book is to promote veganism and organic eating, which is an admirable goal, and if I had unlimited money with which to buy groceries I'd definitely give veganism the old college try. But as it stands, it's highly unrealistic for a lot of people. However, the book did kind of motivate me to give this detox a whirl. I never regarded the organic eating part as crap, just as not important- when I eat organic, it's usually because the farmers markets I shop at tend to have organic crops. But since I have decided to detox, I figure, what the hell, let's try eating at least some organic stuff, and less meat while we're at it.

So today at the store I picked up organic waffles, organic pumpkin seed and granola cereal and soy nog, along with a big assortment of fruits and vegetables. Tomorrow I'm looking at black bean cakes with guacamole for dinner, later in the week no cheese pizza with a mess of vegetables, and portabello mushroom caps stuffed with pesto and pine nuts. I also have my absolute favorite tortillas in the world, Extreme Wellness, to make all kinds of wraps (seriously, follow the link- best tortillas ever.) I'm being extra ambitious and trying to lay off the cigarettes and booze, too, which isn't so very hard if I avoid the bar, which is the hard part. But today my show closed, and I still have one more week until school starts, so I'm going to dedicate all my time and energy to the detox until I get tired of it and quit, which I'm predicting will occur on Wednesday.

Comment and tell me how much fun you're having with your New Years resolutions! And while you're at it, tell me why I feel the need to capitalize New Years when I don't think of it as a real holiday.

I'm a sociology major. Luckily I am not planning on doing anything with this degree, as I already know what I want to do with my life and I'm pretty much doing it at the moment, but I've always felt it was important to get a college education if you have the means to do so because it speaks of an ability to follow through and finish what one starts. Besides, I love sociology, and I seem to have an innate understanding of it which makes it an enjoyable course of study. One class I'm taking this semester is on the sociology of work, which seems to mean the sociology of the inequality of work; not that I'm complaining, as I seem to have developed a spidey sense for gender, racial and socioeconomic bias. No good discussion of the new American workplace would be complete without talking about Wal-Mart, which was our topic today. Among other things, I find Wal-Mart abhorrent because it has forced the very people who it put out of a job (domestic factory workers, independent business owners) to purchase their goods because they are the cheapest. These people are put into a very sad position, because they literally don't have the money to shop elsewhere, and so must buy their necessary items within the Jaws of Hell; it doesn't very well work for us to tell them to shop somewhere else. While we were making this point in class, someone piped up with, "It's like when we tell poor people to eat healthy, but they can't because it's cheapest to get a 1 dollar hamburger from McDonald's."

I hear this argument a lot. In fact, I think I actually made it at some point on the blog here (I say I think because actually looking to see if I did would require opening another tab on Firefox and I'm too lazy to do that.) I've done some thinking, though, and I was wrong if I ever said that. Yes, it may be cheaper that day to eat at McDonald's, but in the long run, you save a lot of money by cooking at home. To illustrate my point, I thought of how much it would cost to feed one person for a week with groceries. This list was made using groceries from Kroger, and how much things cost in Indianapolis. Some of these things were on sale if you used your Kroger Plus Card, which is free to get so you should get one. Also, always shop at Kroger because they are unionized.

Milk: $1.25/half gallon
Generic Cheerios: $1.88
8 apples: $2.00 (4/$1)
1 lb grapes: 93 cents
1 lb sliced ham: $2.19
1 carton eggs: 77 cents
1 jar peanut butter: $1
1 loaf wheat bread: $1
1 lb ground turkey: $2.50
1 lb box wheat pasta: $1.00
1 14.5 oz can Hunt's pasta sauce: $1.00
Salad mix: $2.50
Generic salad dressing: $2.00

Grand total : $20.02
Cost per day: $2.86
Rough price of a meal at McDonald's, off the dollar menu, which includes a protein, carb, and fruit/veggie: $3.00 plus tax

I'll analyze how I did the list: The milk, Cheerios, grapes and eggs are for breakfast- a handful of grapes, a bowl of cereal and an egg or two is grain/carbs, lean protein, calcium and vitamins from fruit.

The lunch meat, peanut butter, bread and apples are for lunch. Again, any combo of these will give you the essentials for a filling, healthy meal. At the end of the week you'll have an extra apple and likely extra meat or peanut butter to eat as a snack at some point.

And the pasta, turkey, sauce and salad are obviously for dinner. Again- trifecta of good carbs/fiber, protein and a veggie.

I get that this is not exactly the food pyramid, but no one will starve on this, and what you'd be eating is a hell of a lot better for you than fast food. Also, Kroger generally has a lot of 10/$10.00 specials every week- for example, this week in their ad I see tuna, English cucumbers, cottage cheese and 1/2 gallons of orange juice, and that's just the healthy stuff. Add those to your groceries for the week and you get a little more variety, for only $4 more (remember, food isn't taxed.)

As you can see, the idea of being too poor to eat healthy is crap. I don't know how many actual poor people use this excuse; it seems to be used more by broke (different from poor, as broke often has to do with poor money choices) college students/young people. Look at it like this: I will assume that the average college student, or single poor person, works 20 hours a week at a job that pays $9/hr. If you assume that 20% of the weekly paycheck is taken out in taxes, we are looking at an income of $144 a week. By cooking at home and eating healthy, you are spending a little less than 14% of your weekly income on food. Even if you sprung for the extra $4 in groceries, you're looking at less than 17% of your weekly income. If you are eating out at every meal, even the dollar menu, let's assume you spend $9.00 a day (3 items off the dollar menu, 3 meals a day.) That's 43% of your weekly income! Holy crap! Now, I'll go ahead and assume that most people don't spend $10 a day on food and eat at home at least some of the time- but still, if you ate at home for every meal, you could eat really healthily for very little money. Did I mention that the only thing you'd need to eat at home on this plan is a pot to cook stuff in? I realize that a lot of people don't have money to buy fancy kitchen things, so I controlled for that. You do need a stove/oven, but almost anywhere you rent or live in will have these

So, ain't nobody too poor to eat healthy. Thank God we have things like WIC and food stamps in the USA so that people who have to work low wage jobs can provide food for their families, especially healthy food. I appreciate that if it were not just you, but you and say, your two children, this $20 in groceries would not quite cut it. But I do firmly believe that eating at home and eating healthily are really easy if you're willing to do it.

Dried fruit- friend or foe?

Sorry about the title, but I couldn't resist. Do people still say foe? Why hasn't that phrase morphed into 'friend or enemy'?

This summer I've gotten really spoiled. There have been lots of awesome farmer's markets, both in town and in the other midwestern cities I've visited (Springfield, IL and South Haven, MI) and I've gotten my pick of all the fresh produce I can handle. Peaches, nectarines, cherries, blueberries, and cheap watermelons from the roadside stand near my neighborhood. Num. I also discovered Jazz apples, which on principle I should oppose because they are a weird hybrid of apples and pears and the idea of genetically engineering fruit always seemed a little weird to me, but nonetheless they are fucking yummy and I wept bitterly when Kroger stopped carrying them.

It seems so odd to me that I never used to like fruit. Whenever I voluntarily ate a piece, I'd congratulate myself for eating healthy and then take a three month fruit hiatus until the next time, so as not to overdose on vitamins or anything. I think this was because my exposure to fruit had been mostly mealy, bitter Gala apples and lame, wrinkly red grapes from when I worked at Steak 'n Shake as a teenager. The only way one could choke those down was to drown them in hot caramel sauce (they were classified in the menu under 'lighter options.') I just never really got into them. And it wasn't until earlier this year that I just decided I would start eating fresh fruit (yes, it really was as simple as just telling myself it was time to start eating them. I've come to think of eating healthy as something that adults do, like getting up before noon on the weekends and doing the dishes without anyone telling you to. I am now an adult, so I must do all of these things.)

In the interim, I discovered the stepping stone to learning to like fresh fruit- dried fruit! It started with dried pineapple, which is inexplicably sweet compared to fresh pineapple. In fact, all fresh fruits are. I don't know why this is, and it's mildly disconcerting- what the hell are they doing to it to make it so sweet? I know they dehydrate it, or something, right? Oh, hey, the Internet! The Internet can tell me things! And it tells me, courtesy of Wikipedia, that "Since dehydration may result in water loss up to seven parts out of eight, dried fruit has a stronger flavor than its fresh counterpart." Well, there you have it.

Uh, oh, there's more- "The drying process also destroys most of the Vitamin C in the food." Huh. Well, that's not good. In fact, one of my nutrition bibles, the Magic Foods guide (which I wrote about earlier in 'Required Reading') says that dried fruit usually lacks almost all of the vitamins that its fresh counterparts have, except maybe the fiber. Also, dried fruit can have up to twice the calories of fresh fruit, for less actual food: for example, an apple has 60 calories, but 10 dried apple rings (the serving size) has 110 calories.

So, is dried fruit really worth it? It's delicious, and it's convenient, but is it healthy? Also, dried fruit is pretty expensive compared to the fresh. Thank God you have me around to make up your mind for you.

In my humble opinion, dried fruit is worth it, provided you study the label carefully and choose wisely. My pick? Trader Joe's Dried Bartlett Pears, and also, Trader Joe's Sweet Dried Apple Rings. Have I mentioned lately that I fucking love Trader Joe's? God, they are awesome. I used to think only uppity people shopped at Trader Joe's, but I guess now I am one of those uppity people, buying my fancy cheeses and organic arugula and carrying it home in my trendy reusable grocery tote bag. I don't care because I get awesome dried fruit at Trader Joe's.

Why is this dried fruit awesome? Mainly, the fiber. Fresh apples and pears have a goodly amount of fiber in them, and it's all preserved in the dried version. For example: the pears have a whopping 10g of fiber per 5 slice serving. That's 41% of your daily needs. And for only 140 calories, that's a deal. And though I might have maligned the apple rings earlier for having too many calories compared to fresh, in fact 110 is hardly anything for something this healthy, especially because it contains 3g of fiber per serving. I've taken to keeping a bag in my car for when I am on my way home from rehearsal at 10:00pm and famished.

I will offer one caveat- be careful about things like dried cherries, dried blueberries, and my beloved dried pineapple. The serving size is usually something like 1/4 or 1/3 cup, and let's face it, unless you want to look like crazy Lifetime movie anorexic girl by measuring out all of your portions with measuring cup, it's pretty easy to get carried away and end up eating way more than you intended; generally, these are in the 140-cal per serving range, which again is really not much, but if you're eating twice or triple that, then it kind of defeats the purpose and you might as well have candy. Dried berries are good for salads, or trail mix, or for sprinkling in your oatmeal, but in general, not so good to take the bag along and munch whenever the urge hits ya.

That's all I got. Comment and tell me what sorts of dried things are not tasty!

It's a magical time of year- the Indy Fringe Festival. This year I'm involved in two shows: Welcome to Blanksville, a long form improv show based on the Choose Your Own Adventure books with Indyprov, and Tortillo!, about a snack food company-cum-drug ring. We all know that snack foods are so not my thing. Being surrounded by bag upon bag of Fritos, Funyuns and Doritos at all times sounds like dieting hell, but actually, I don't even want to eat those things anymore. Put a big ass chocolate chip muffin in my face and we'll talk.

I've seen a few shows so far, including my friend Carrie's Stetson Manifesto (check her out at rainbowsandsausages.blogspot.com), a really neat modern dance piece called Gone, Gone, Gone (I swear one day when I retire from acting I'm just going to dance, because nothing makes me feel more light and free), and Wanda and Rhonda's Bitchin Bingo Bash, where I unfortunately did not win bingo.

But one show I saw happens to relate to the blog. It was called 'The Attack of the Big Angry Booty.' It's a very funny storytelling piece about both losing weight and watching others lose weight. It's told from the perspective of a gay male actor, and as such I really felt like I could relate to it. I don't think I can properly stress how much weight and body means to a performer. Your fat ass is on display for the world to see, and because you have voluntarily put said ass out there, it is fair game for anyone to comment on. The thing I told Les, the storyteller, that really stuck out to me was how every story was about a gay man or a woman- never a straight man. I really do feel that straight men have much more leeway with their weight; this is especially obvious to me once you get to the performance world. Hell, straight men get more leeway with their looks in general. I think of the show Roseanne- lots of people didn't like Roseanne because she was an opinionated lady, so to try to hurt her feelings, they called her fat. John Goodman was way bigger and I never heard anyone call him fat.

I liked this piece because it reinforces what I have been saying since God was a boy- control your portions and get some exercise, and you will be fine. If you don't want to control portions or exercise, you'll be fine, too, but you'll also probably be heavy, and if you are a gay man or a woman, chances are that people will not be okay with your decision to be heavy. Remember this, though- no one can make you feel like shit without your permission. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, I was hardwired to be sensitive to comments on my weight. Hence this blog!

I admired Les's courage to get up there and talk about his struggles. I'd love to do a storytelling piece of my experiences with weight loss and dieting, but I find a lot of that stuff too personal, even for the blog. But Les's piece isn't super serious; it's actually very fun and easy to relate to, for anyone. Check it out! (After you've checked out my shows, of course.)

There's an article in today's New York Times magazine called Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch by Michael Pollan. It is partly about Julia Child, who is awesome, and partly about "Julie and Julia", whose producers I swear must have purchased stock in the Times because it seems like every damn article lately has made some mention of it (Civil Unrest in Honduras Continues while Julie and Julia Opens to Rave Reviews), but mostly about how people no longer cook at home, even though as a culture we still seem pretty fascinated with food.

Read it. It was really, really interesting, especially if you like food or cooking. The stats, while sad, were not surprising- the average American spends 27 minutes a day on food preparation. I'm sure some of you are saying, "That's kind of a lot." And maybe it is, to you, because I'd wager to say that a good 50% of people "don't cook." Here's what I have to say about that- get over it and learn.

The article does get down on all of the many 'shortcuts' afforded to us now. I like convenience food as much as the next person- I don't know what I'd do without bagged spinach, sliced mushrooms, chicken buillon cubes, and refrigerated pizza dough. I'm glad we have these things, because without them, I probably wouldn't cook. The article talks about how Julia Child took the fear out of cooking- she showed the average home cook with a normal kitchen how to make fancy sounding things and proved that it was something everyone could do if you had the patience and the motivation. I think for most people, watching Julia Child in 2009 would actually make you more fearful- "You mean I have to do THAT?" The good news is, since the majority of us don't have one adult who stays home and whose main job is to run the house, I don't think anyone is expecting people to prepare an hour-long French feast every night of the week. In 2009, the article says, cooking in the style of Julia is pretty obsolete, except for those of us who truly want to spend hours cooking.

And I don't spend hours cooking, though I do cook. In fact, I cook almost everything I eat, or do some amount of preparation, even if it is just slicing the cheese and tomatoes to make a sandwich. But for the most part, I don't roast my own chicken, or make my own pie crust (Pollan calls this "real scratch cooking"), and that doesn't make me feel inadequate. I can make a mean Korean chicken or spinach and mushroom quiche or baked ziti. People ask me how I learned to cook and I say, "One day I was hungry, and there was no food, so I had to make something." I might be one of the cooks that Pollan is villifying here- the ones who rely a lot on shortcuts and are drawn to the concept of "30-Minute Meals." But what the article taught me is, if I am consistently doing 30-minute meals every day, I'm doing a hell of a lot better than most people. I think there are four levels of cooking- those who don't cook at all, those who can operate an oven enough to make frozen lasagna or a boxed cake mix, those like me who can make a wide array of everyday meals and some specialty things, and people at the top who are total whizzes and know how (and have the patience) to do everything from homemade cannoli to steak tartare. I think all adults should be at least a level 2, with the ability to at least feed themselves. I am saddened by people who burn frozen pizzas. I find cooking to be very intuitive- once you have the basics down, it's really easy. Just follow the directions. Why are some people too scared to attempt that?

But what really drew me to the article was the connection between obesity and home cooking. I have always known this but I didn't have the stats to back it up, and now I do. The bottom line: people who cook are less likely to be obese than those who do. Far less likely. I quote:

"The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not."

Whoa. I think that is amazing. But why? Oh, hey, more quotes!

"When we let corporations do the cooking, they’re bound to go heavy on sugar, fat and salt; these are three tastes we’re hard-wired to like, which happen to be dirt cheap to add and do a good job masking the shortcomings of processed food."

SEE!!!! Before, you didn't believe me. When you said, "Taco Bell isn't that bad for you, it's just cheese and chicken and a tortilla!" and I said, "God, you are so wrong," you disagreed. Now it's in the newspapers, so it's true. Now do you believe me? I hope this serves as a wakeup call to a lot of people- when you eat fast food or pre-packaged crap, you have only a vague idea of what is actually inside it unless you read the label. And a lot of that stuff is really, really bad for you. It makes you farty and tired and large (being large is okay, but only if you got that way eating stuff that is awesome and delicious- and believe me, there are lots of delicious and awesome things you can make at home for much cheaper, that are way more worthwhile things to use to fatten up.) They are hard on your system, full of steroids and lots of other drugs with unfortunate side effects, and they are addicting.

This is why I advocate home cooking: you can control what goes into your food. And if, like me, you prefer to use the diet version of ingredients to get a lower-cal product, you can do that! You can make your french toast with whole wheat bread with extra fiber. You can use egg whites instead of eggs to make your breakfast sandwich, and you can use turkey bacon instead of pork bacon. You can use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! instead of real butter on your grilled cheese, or substitute turkey for pork in your meatballs. Alternately, you can do awesome things like add dried apricots to your turkey meatballs or mushrooms to your lasagna. These are all things that fast food places either don't offer, or you'd feel like an asshole for ordering. But if you do it at home, it's not only cheaper, it's healthier. And even if you're scared to cook, there are usually frozen turkey meatballs and cartons of egg whites in the grocery store to make it extra easy.

I get kind of upset when people refuse to cook and go out to eat all the time. I kind of equate it with laziness and wastefulness, which I understand is probably unfair, but I can't help it because I know how easy and beneficial it is to make the switch (I think this is how ex-smokers feel when they hear their smoking friends complaining of having a constant cough or something- they know there is a simple solution for the problem, but their friends don't want to hear it.) I know for some people, it isn't realistic to cook- it's a lot cheaper to go to Taco Bell than to buy tortillas and chicken and cheese. But all of the rest of us who make enough money to cook at home should do so, at least part of the time. There are such a wealth of benefits to cooking at home and taking control of your food. And besides, cooking is really fun. I used to be kind of a fast food addict. If I could have eaten fast food for every meal, I would have. I never would have thought that, today, I routinely turn down the option to go out to eat because I've been dreaming all day of something I can cook at home.

The article says a lot of this better than I can. But the bottom line is this- I started this blog because I love to write, and I love food, and I especially love healthy or diet food. I wanted to show people how easy it is to eat even a little healthier. I would be remiss if I did not point out that one of the easiest ways is to cook at home. So try it. You might like it.

Soup! And other foods for toothless people

I finally did it. I got my damn wisdom teeth out. I've been putting it off for over a year now because I was just too terrified. Not of the pain, really- I've had jaw issues stemming from my teeth for years, and I doubted that the post-op pain would be worse than that (I was right.) I was really scared of the IV. I never used to have this huge needle phobia, and I still don't- I'm not thrilled to get a shot, but I can man up a little bit, with minimal tears. Getting blood drawn or having an IV placed is a different story. That shit ain't right. I just don't want anything in my veins; the very thought of it is horrifying to me. I was also terrified of the actual passing out- the counting backwards, that horrible feeling of falling and losing control. It makes me think of the people on Intervention, shooting heroin and then passing out and choking on their puke. Ew. I know it sounds really wussy for me to avoid this surgery that would have saved me a lot of pain and bullshit if I had done it a year ago because I was scared of the IV, but there you go. I even had gone to an oral surgeon at one point and talked about it, but when he told me I couldn't take a Valium before the surgery, I was out of there. But this time my jaw and mouth hurt so bad that my dentist refused to write me any more prescriptions for pain killers or Amoxicillin if I didn't just get them pulled, so I did. I asked them for the nitrous oxide before they even put the IV in, but when she told me, "Your fingers and toes might start to tingle," I started sobbing like I was going to the electric chair and didn't stop until a few hours after my surgery, because you best believe I was STILL CRYING when they woke me up.


Anywho, it does hurt, but nothing that sweet, sweet Vicodin can't control. What does suck is that I can't eat like I want to, and I haven't been able to since Tuesday of last week, when the jaw and wisdom tooth pain started and I stopped being able to open my mouth more than a few centimeters. Everyone knows that post-surgery, especially of the oral kind, you're limited to 'soft foods.' This generally means soup, pudding, and ice cream. For some people, this is really exciting- an excuse to eat all the ice cream you want! Not so for me. First off, if I want some ice cream, I'll just eat some fucking ice cream- I don't need an excuse. And second off, I don't want to eat nothing but ice cream. When I was a kid, I used to love Thursdays because that was the night my very health conscious mother worked late, so I was left with my dad, who doesn't cook. This meant I got to eat fast food. Sometimes, if my mom was out of town for something, I would get to eat as much fast food as I could ever want. As I got older, I realized that I wasn't really doing myself any favors by eating all that fast food. Yeah, it tasted good, but it wasn't worth it in the end. I feel that way about ice cream and junk food now. Yeah, it tastes good, and if I could eat it all the time, I guess I would, but I can't, so waiting until times like this to completely binge on it isn't really going to help me in the long run.

Plus, I'm used to eating healthy. It took me a really long time to get to where I am with my eating- to the point where I prefer to eat fruits and vegetables. I worry that I'm always on the verge of falling off the wagon, though. This week has proven that I am not. I MISS VEGETABLES. I think you can tell how nutritious a food is by its crunchiness. Usually, crunchiness denotes some kind of fiber, or at least a good high water content which means low cal. Watermelon? Apples? Peppers? Brocolli? Carrots? Crunchy. They take awhile to chew. Pudding? Soup? Ice cream? Un-crunchy. Fiberless, soft, and boring. But there is a reason they are recommended- I attempted to eat a salad the day before my surgery and found I was unable to get the fork in my mouth because I couldn't open wide enough, let alone chew the spinach to any sort of swallowable consistency.

Combine this horrible diet with an inability to exercise for my usual amount for a few days (Vicodin, while good at relieving the throbbing and tension, makes me a little sick to my stomach, and my legs sorta weak), plus the fact that I can't have any Coke Zero because I heard carbonation increases your chances of dry sockets, and I am ready to go Charles Manson on someone's ass. Seriously. Don't come to my house unannounced, because chances are I will be sitting on the porch cleaning my gun and looking for my next victim.

This presented a big problem. How do I eat healthy when I can't chew? It hasn't been easy, but I think I did a pretty good job.

1. Lentils. Lentils are miracle food. Packed with fiber, sometimes upwards of 40% of your daily value per serving, as well as lots of protein, they're kind of magic. Something this good should be illegal. And when cooked the right way, they're nice and soft and easy to gum! The way I've been preparing them comes from a recipe courtesy of a cookbook put out by Prevention magazine that I can't recall the name of (check out their cookbooks, though- I have a few and always get them at the library because they have some awesome creative and healthy, as well as easy, recipes.) Bring a cup of chicken stock and a cup of water to boil on the stove. Add 1/2 a chopped onion and a few good shakes of red pepper flakes. Add 1/2 cup of lentils while everything is still boiling. Simmer it, covered, for 20 minutes- if the lentils are dry after 10, add some more water. After 20 minutes, take off the lid, turn the heat on high and boil off the rest of the water if there's any left. Then add a shot of olive oil and some salt, pepper, and oregano. Delicious and soft. I added mushrooms and spinach to mine since my body needed things that had once been in dirt. Yum.

2. Smoothies. I'm not usually a fan of them, even though they taste good, because in general, they are nutritional nightmares. They usually involve some sort of frozen yogurt, hyper-sweetened fruit product, lots of excess milk and maybe a few shakes of protein powder. However, when you make them at home, you can control what you put into them, and save your five bucks that you would have spent on them somewhere else. I needed fruit, so I made smoothies. One I've grown to love is a few good handfuls of blueberries, a handful of frozen strawberries or cherries (or fresh is you have them, though make sure to take out the pits in the cherries), a generous splash of light vanilla soymilk (I like Silk brand), and either a scoop of light Activia vanilla yogurt or a scoop of chocolate protein powder. Voila- fruit, protein, and new chewing. If I had time to clean out my blender every morning, I'd probably drink these for breakfast pretty regularly.

3. Soup. It's a staple. I'm a sucker from french onion soup in particular, but it has to be the kind with a ton of croutons and a layer of cheese an inch thick on the top. I tried as long as I could to hold out on soup because it makes me feel like an invalid, but finally I couldn't take it and asked my dad to pick some up on his way home from work. Bless his heart, he bought all of the soups you use to cook with- cheddar cheese, cream of mushroom, etc. But he did get me a can of Campbell's Select Harvest Garden Recipes Harvest Tomato with Basil soup. I had never had tomato soup before- something about it just didn't seem right to me. It was too much like eating hot tomato juice. But I'll tell you what, it was good, and a bowl of it contains a serving of vegetables! I love anything sneaky like that. Each serving contains 100 calories, 5 from fat, and 2g of fiber and 3g of protein. Not bad for something you can essentially suck up with a straw. I dressed it up with some mozzarella and parmesan and it made a perfectly good breakfast. I'd eat it again, even if I weren't confined to only foods one can put into a feeding tube.

Exercise and the post-op

Unfortunately, I found that after my wisdom tooth-ectomy, I was a little more tired than usual- meaning I was so high on painkiller that I slept all damn day. Add to that the previously discussed shakiness and overall feeling of crap and I didn't do my usual hour of exercise. Luckily, a few weeks ago I bought Get Extremely Ripped with Jari Love. I love me some Jari Love- her DVDs all have titles like 'Get Ripped and Chiseled' or 'Get Ripped 1000' or 'Get Super Mega Hulking Ripped.' And she doesn't disappoint. She does high reps with few breaks and kicks your ass, with a focus on the arms. I especially like Get Ripped 1000 because you do step aerobics in between and by the end I'm so sweaty that I can barely see because it drips into my eyes. Most of her workouts are about an hour, but Get Extremely Ripped is actually 2 different 30 minute segments. I bought it for mornings when I have to do something early and don't have a lot of time; I figured they'd be good for my recovery since they're high intensity but not very long. And I have to say: damn. Just because they're short doesn't mean they don't kick your ass. I was sweatier than someone's swarthy immigrant dad after mowing the lawn (or my own swarthy dad after mowing the lawn.) It's mostly combination moves, with arms and legs, and you can use a step if you have it though there are modifications. I liked the little timer that pops up when you have 30 seconds to go. I don't recommend it for beginners, but I think people who work out occasionally (once or twice a week) might like it for an extra challenge. Do not think that all of her workouts are like this, though- her longer ones generally hit only one body part at a time, so while they are hard, they aren't as sweat-inducing as Get Extremely Ripped.

That's all I got! Comment and tell me if you give a damn about eating healthy when you're sick!