Food Rant - It's Not That Hard to be Good

 I was going to combine this with my last entry, but I thought better of it. It's long and a bit negative in parts, so I tried not to post it. When that didn't work, I decided to quarantine it to this post right here.

I think the kind of eating that I did today, 400 calories in snacks and a 500+calorie dinner, might seem strange to people who live with food bipolar disorder, a term I just made up to describe my old and a lot of other people's conflicting attitudes toward food. This kind of feeling makes otherwise awesome and reasonable people fear food like eggs (such high cholesterol!) and bananas (such high sugar and calories!) because of the scare tactics used by magazines, the news, and fad diets. These people eschew such food but might later be seen eating something like a massive restaurant Caesar salad (hey, it's a salad!) or a breaded chicken sandwich because chicken is better than a burger, right?

Not to sound like a self-righteous health nut that no one ever wants to hang around, but if you've ever thought any of those things, you probably need a better picture of what you're eating. The best way to get that is by logging your calories. It's a great practice that if you can get into, even if just for a month, will allow you to see the massive dent certain foods make in your available daily calorie goal. When I think that I just ate this yummy and filling meal for less than half of the calories of the restaurant lunch Chris and I had the other day, which we SPLIT, it's kind of mind-boggling. In a good way! Sure, I used to eat piles of junk and spend hundreds of dollars a month eating at fast food and other restaurants, but I don't anymore!

I used to eat all this for one meal! I ate 20 more
calories than this on the entire day of Friday.

And it's so easy to cook for yourself. Almost every recipe I've tried since cooking has been a success, and all so far have been at least edible. It's so much more economical in terms of money and calories, it's just kind of a no brainer these days for all except special occasions. I'm not saying I don't still want to eat the junk, but once I make a good food decision, I generally don't think about the cruddy food any more.

Even when you can't make your food, there are often choices you can make while you're out and about that will be better for you than your old ways of eating. I had eight pieces of brown rice California sushi rolls the other day when I was at the mall with Catherine, and while I could have had a burger, pizza, or evil wonderful evil poutine, I had a filling meal for under 300 calories. Even white rice sushi would have only been 50 calories more. That's less than a medium container of fries at McDonald's. Heck, that's less than a large Coke.

The point is that it's not hard. It's not as easy as a drive-thru meal, but it's kind of close. And it's miles better for you. I don't know what else I can say. Try it. Read some real health advice, take flash news stories about how one type of food is HORRIBLE or AMAZING with a grain of salt, and just try. And then try again. Give it a month. If you don't like what you see, stop. But I don't think that's going to happen.