When one becomes a vegetarian they hear tales about how you should never go back to eating meat- the stomach pains alone will kill you once that first morsel of animal hits your belly. I’ve been vegetarian pretty much since I was 15. I’ve had brief sojourns as a carnivore- when traveling abroad mostly- but never really had the meat bellyaches. That said, it’s been about 15 years since I’ve eaten real meaty meat. I have tasted crustaceans (crabs, oysters) from time to time, but otherwise, nada. Perhaps now I would have the much feared gut ache if I ate the beef…
Anyhow, the same thing is said of really healthy eaters. Like, remember when Morgan Spurlock ate his first supersized McDonalds meal in the documentary Super Size Me? He only got halfway through it before he yacked it out his window. Then, this summer, on Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, the trainer, Chris Powell, exchanged diets with his trainee and ended up having to eat lots of fried foods. He threw up too. I rolled my eyes like, sha. Right. Drama kings.
But lately…
Things are changing. I don’t want to say that I’m such a healthy eater now that I throw up when I eat crappy food, but I think I am one of those people. Or I’m becoming one. Over the past few months, whenever we’ve eaten junky- like Chipotle burritos or OCB breakfast, we don’t feel so good after. It’s becoming a regular enough occurrence that I’m beginning to see the connection: when I eat crap I feel like crap. Except now I feel so gross after that I don’t even want it anymore.
Tonight was a unique night. It was Jude’s half birthday, my daughter killed the state standardized test and we got the results, I had curriculum night and Bradley ‘unhacked’ our meanly hacked family website* all day and was successful! We earned a night out! So we went to Red Robin- a place I’ve always loved. I like a good burger and fries. Yum! Even if I do actually sub the salad for the fries but eat a bunch of Bradley’s anyways. Anyhow, tonight? The picture above is remarkable because I just stopped eating fries. Didn’t tell myself to stop, just stopped eating them. Without thinking. I didn’t continue to compulsively Hoover down the remainder of the basket. In fact, I had stopped several fries prior to this and Bradley had eaten them down to this. When I realized what had happened, I was so proud that I actually took a picture of those two little fries, all lonely and dejected down there, destined for the trash. I felt accomplished, somehow, like the worm had turned and no longer was I an obsessive fry freak.
…
A half hour later, while in the middle of my curriculum night speech in front of my students’ parents…
burp… gurgle… burp… weird stomach squeal… gurgle…
Inwardly I’m thinking all those things about how Chris Powell and Morgan Spurlock were right- this feels awful! Forget that I only ate about eight fries, half my burger, a salad- this was not right! I smiled and joked my way through the night then as soon as the last parent exited my classroom I took the most bumpy ride in my truck (which I lovingly call ‘sh*tkicker’ – it’s a 1985 Chevy who looks her age. Nuff said.) all the way home! That did not help. I walked in the door to my house, about to lose my stomach, and Bradley was feeling the same. Then we both said what we didn’t want to say- that we can’t eat like that anymore. We need to find a new family restaurant.
It’s a little sad, but also a great celebration.
Cheers!
*
We were hacked by some dude that left a pirates skull and appeared to have erased our site. It was un-awesome but my husband is the bees knees and was able to find the hackers code within ours and pulled most of it out. Now we have to sift through the rest, but I’m glad to have it back!
Like this:
Like Loading...
