Roughing It, OR: I'm Trying, Subway, I'm Trying

"Goody gumdrops, I was up all night fantasizing about fucking fiber. You know that feeling when you get a belly full of fiber and you can skip round the room taunting everybody who didn’t get theirs? Remember all those times in your life when you stopped strangers in the street and screamed at them, I NEED SOME FIBER!"

-- Dylan Moran

 

 

Lies, and corruption -- sums it up nicely, I feel.

All these health nuts (I always think of someone in workout clothes painfully trying to masticate whole walnuts when I hear that phrase) who warble on about the marvels of kelp or a new 45-ingredient salad they've discovered, I go to my happy place. There's mountains of mashed potatoes there, erupting melty butter that flows into lakes of real gravy, amid rough breaded foothills of fried chicken. It is glorious. I frolic there until the unwanted nut has begun to witter about something else, essential oils* or yoga or whatever else they talk about.

 

I lost my weight by not exercising, and eating empty/low-calorie foodstuffs -- no, not actual foods, just foodstuffs -- like Kraft cheese singles. I hate vegetables. If I try to force them down it is quite literally, factually, nauseating. I had to throw away a perfectly good dose of Caesar dressing and fancy Gorgonzola crumbles last week because they were on a salad I could not bring myself to take more than two bites of. Just "making" myself eat them is not working; so now a mystical journey to the heart of all things, like how to make me enjoy roughage. Just a little bit. Because SUBWAY COMMANDS YOU.

 

 

 

So far my greatest ally has been my passionate, unending love of cheese. I know, the great blocker of all that roughage is supposed help hustle through your digestive tract. They are karmic opposites in this, but it is through balance that one achieves enlightenment. At least that's what I think as I load up my wrap with cheddar cheese and a begrudging fistful of Baby Greens Spring Mix. What? At least I'm eating some of the damn stuff.

It's mine, my own; I made it. Hiss. [Gollum copyright]

 

Lunchtime Solution #1 is the Roughage Wrap -- lunchmeat, salad dressing, (as little) cheese (as possible) and greenery in a tortilla. Bonus points for the more virtuous diet wheat wraps. They don't taste bad, per se; it's just that the way they tear under your teeth leaves you fighting the instinctual reaction not to swallow, because that it is not a food texture.

 

 

Lunchtime Solution #2 is the Sans-Meat Sammich -- because cheese is even more important than meat in my sandwich. It's got garlic aioli and garlic Monterey cheese on a Kaiser bun with the usual essential greenery. The key to this one is very expensive high-quality cheese. It is muy delicioso, but the after-lunch breath will kill at forty paces if you don't keep mouthwash at your desk. Not, however, always a bad thing. Plus, it tastes as fancy as all get-out, and not like you're being punished at all. HUGE step towards that whole Enlightenment and Oneness with the Green Stuff thing.

 

They're all pretty good calorically, too, around the equal-to/less-than 400 baseline that I shoot for in my small meal of the day.
 

LoseIt pretty much tells me how much shame/pride to feel on a given day, and these midday greenery mini-meals have really helped the ratio tip in my favor. All you healthy blog ladies are probably all over this stuff anyway, so here ya go. The blind leading the sighted -- nonsensical, yes, but it should be hilarious.

 

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*Fun Hypocrisy Fact: I use essential oils all the time, instead of perfume, because the smell lasts longer. But not because they're helping my memory or curing my Doodler's Early-Onset Arthritis.