You Are What You Eat

I’ve been thinking a lot about food this past week. I haven’t been feeling very well, and my energy has been really low lately. Plus, (not like y’all need to know this, but…) my body has been plagued with a wave of random rashes, sores, irritated spots, and otherwise nasty afflictions of Bible-like proportions since about January. I’ve even developed spring-time allergies for the first time ever. Sigh. My pants don’t fit, my once-muscular physique has melted to mush, I look like a pre-teen with my haircut and the return of my acne, and my cravings for sweets have spiraled out of control… c’mon, world—what gives?

Well, dear readers, my diet is what gives. I’ve been eating nothing but junk, and I guess you can say that I’ve officially ‘let myself go’. I wasn’t planning on it (of course—I don’t usually wake up in the mornings and think to myself ‘you know what would be awesome? Buying a whole new wardrobe in a bigger size! Yes!’), but nonetheless, it’s come to a point now where I need to do something. And fast.

Hence, I’ve decided to take another stab at a spring detox. Last year’s detox didn’t pan out so well (blame it on the cupcakes), but this year, I think I’m feeling nasty and atrocious enough to subject myself to the considerable discipline that a detox requires. You can’t eat flour, dairy, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, tropical fruits, or anything fermented (mushrooms, yeast, vinegar, etc.) on a detox diet (usually for about 2-3 weeks), and even though it might seem like nothing is left over to be allowed, my 3-month stint on a detox diet about a year-and-a-half ago proved that cleansing oneself can, in fact, be quite enjoyable and even delicious. So starting tomorrow… here I’ll go again.

It frustrates me how difficult it can be to wean oneself off of sugar and other tasty treats. Sugar is absolutely everywhere, and unless you make just about everything from scratch yourself, you end up eating some of it (or its nasty splenda/equal/sorbitol/aspartame varieties). Sometimes, though, all it takes is a particularly poignant reminder of how crappy the food we eat actually is to be able to take the plunge into a healthier diet and lifestyle. In my case, my reminder came last Friday night, when a case of the munchies drove Marty and I into the welcoming arms of our local Tim Horton’s. We felt like eating soup, and being vegetarians, we ordered the most veggie-sounding soup on the menu: Cauliflower and Cheese. It wasn’t until we had the bowls in front of us, though, that it occurred to us to ask if the soup was vegetarian. None of the workers knew (of course not), but one particularly brave soul offered to taste the soup for us and report back on the meat factor. Turns out that the soup had turkey in it (which I suppose is only natural… ?? Since when does turkey logically go together with cauliflower??!) Anyway, we declined to eat the soup. A few seconds later, one of the staff came over to our table and apologized about the soup not being vegetarian (not like it was her fault). Then came the kicker. She said:

‘I don’t know if it will make you both feel better or not, but just to let you know, none of our soups actually have meat in them. We just use a powdered meat-tasting mix. You can probably still eat the soup if you like, because there’s no real meat in it anyway.’

Huh. It’s not like I thought that the ‘homestyle’ soups were actually homestyle, but it had also never crossed my mind that the meaty soups would just be powder… is it just me, or is that disgusting? Whatever your thoughts on the matter, it was enough to make me take a step back and re-evaluate what I’ve been putting into my body. Starting tomorrow, then, I’m taking the plunge. I figure blogging will help to keep me on track (because there’s nothing I hate more than admitting to other people that I’ve failed at something), so you can all look forward to semi-frequent reports on my progress. Goodbye, indigestion!