This post is going to be hastily thrown together and for that, I apologize.  I’ve been trying to write all weekend and shit just keeps gett’in in my way!

Friday was an amazing day…and also the beginning of a real eye opener for me.  First, I’ll tell you about the amazing part…

I had the opportunity to attend an event at DFW airport in the American Airlines hangar.  They were welcoming the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner to Texas.  I usually only fly on 737’s when I travel.  I can’t remember the last time I even saw a 777.  The 787 is HUUUUGE!  Anyway, it was a super fun event and it was so cool to stand in the hangar when they towed this massive airplane in.  The only food in sight, however, was the ice cream bars that the Blue Bell company was passing out…and I am not ready to confront the ice cream demons!

I was there for hours.  My feet were killing me from walking around the cement floor of the hangar in heels.  Yowch!  The only thing that made the pain worthwhile was the fact that I won a raffle prize:  2 round trip tickets!!  The Hot Mess Hubby and I are gonna plan a vacation!!

By the time I left, I was absolutely starving.  Normally, I would just deal with it but I had just dealt with a migraine headache that morning.  Usually if I let hunger go unchecked when I’ve already had a migraine, it comes back with a vengeance.  To make matters worse, my route home was crammed with super bad traffic because of an accident – and the usual work around routes were already congested because the Texas Rangers game was going to start.  So, since I was so hungry and knew I was going to spend at least the next hour in the car, I danced with the devil:  the McDonald’s drive-thru.

I can hear y’all gasping in horror all across the globe.  🙂  Don’t worry…really.

I haven’t been in a drive thru since December 15th.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I’ve been to Sonic twice to get kiddy cheeseburgers for Kirby and Dyson as a special treat.  I haven’t ordered anything for myself.  Till Friday.

I’m really weird about ordering chicken at fast food places.  It always seems slimy and slightly under cooked to me, so I just don’t touch it.  I thought back to my Weight Watchers days and remembered that the occasional Happy Meal never hurt me…so that’s what I ordered.  (I like my burgers plain & dry, so there wasn’t even any dressing to worry about.)

As I drove home, I dug into the Happy Meal.  First bite…hmmm.  Hmmm?  What on earth?  This burger has absolutely no taste whatsoever!!  I grabbed a french fry.  I always loved their french fries.  Chomp chomp chomp.  What??  No taste.  NO taste.  I made a face as I went back for another bite of my burger.  I really didn’t want any more, but I wanted my stomach to feel less hollow.  I took two more bites and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.  It was like eating dry fluff that had no taste.  The fries were just slightly better.

I went over and over it in my mind.  Before I started down this healthy living road, this was my life:

Breakfast at McDonald’s:

2 sausage biscuits, 1 cinnamon melt, 1 diet dr pepper

Snack:

Powdered donuts from the vending machine

 

 

Lunch (back to McDonald’s)

2 hamburgers, 1 large fry, 3 oatmeal cookies, 1 diet dr pepper

Dinner

Pizza or pizza rolls or frozen taquitos

I looooved the food.  I thought it was so tasty and wonderful.  As I would eat it, I would think “I really need to eat better, but I love this so much!!!”  It seemed like such a drag to think about eating healthy.  It was a world of deprivation that I didn’t want to deal with.

For the past 5 months, I’ve been cooking for myself.  I’ve been eating more whole foods and less processed foods.  I’ll tell you what:  my blackened turkey burger with chipotle mustard is effing awesome.  I would rather have that than that tasteless mouth full of fluff from McDonald’s.  Yuck.

I realized…my tastebuds have finally grown up.  LOL.  I took the remaining half of my burger and threw it back in the bag.  I tried a couple of fries, but it was still gross…and my stomach had stopped gurgling.  I was done.  I crumbled up the back and tossed it to the floor of my ghetto Hyundai.  It was an entirely gross experience.

The next morning I woke up with a full day planned.  I had to make brownies in the morning in order to test a recipe I’ve never done before…because I had to do a Pampered Chef party that night.  So I put together the brownies.  I’ll spare you the particulars, but I will say that they were incredibly rich.  They came out smelling beautiful and looking perfect.  To be sure I got it right, I did eat one.  This one was a bit scary for me to do, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to have one bite of sugar and go into a relapse.  I ate a brownie.

Around the 2nd to last bite, I started realizing how much the sugar was effecting me.    I felt sick.  Weak.  Like I needed a shower.  A pain started behind my eyes.  I felt generally gross.  I sat down on the couch for a minute, really regretting that brownie.  I stayed there for 2 hours as my stomach turned into a churning, bloated, ball of regret.  Ugh!!!

I don’t know how long I sat on that couch, but eventually I was in pain.  Right behind my eyes.  Crap…another migraine.  I took a pill and, as I waited for it to take effect, I realized that this brownie was sooo not worth it.  Not worth it at all.  I felt like crap for hours.

When I felt better, I started gathering my stuff together for the Pampered Chef party – and I wrapped up the brownies and took them with me too.  They weren’t staying in my house.  I doubt I would ever want to eat one again, but I still didn’t want them in my house.  Yuck!!

The rest of my weekend went by without incident, but these lessons I learned stayed with me.  My tastebuds have grown up.  I’m so proud.  🙂  I finally prefer real, healthy, home-made food to that dried out fast food crap.  The turkey burger I made myself earlier was sheer heaven.  Heaven!

In other news, Mr Scale is back in the bathroom and showing me no love.  He’s probably pissed.  I am slightly worried that the 5 day lapse in my meds has caused a stall in my progress.  The 7 Dwarfs are coming next week and I was really hoping to lose 40 pounds by the time they rode into town.  Doesn’t look like I’ll get to do that.

Overall, I learned that I really am changing.  The things that used to thrill me now leave me wanting something better.  I am so proud of myself for that…and grateful.  Truly grateful.

Now let’s see if I can move some marbles this week.  How are y’all doing??