Weigh-in Wednesday: Dec. 6, 2023
Let's speak of lunches of great sadness
I eat the same thing for lunch every day – either a wrap, or a salad that is basically the wrap but on lettuce. I don't enjoy any of it. The sound of a Tupperware salad being shaken at an office desk in hopes of optimal salad dressing distribution is one of the most mournful sounds in the universe. You can actually hear a person's soul seeping out of their body when they shake a sad desk salad. It's the sound of a reasonable meal choice but also TPS reports and settling and defeat. Like wearing slippers to the gas station in December. Every shake of that salad is a reminder that you were young once, and you had dreams – dreams that didn't involve having to rinse olive oil out of a bowl in the break room sink.
The whole point of lunch, for me, now, is just to not be hungry anymore because being hungry is annoying, and maturity at the end of the day is really about narrowing and heightening the field of things that you actually choose to care about. I don't have time for your little games, stomach. Lunch was your idea, not mine. I'm out. And I figure that if I'm not going to enjoy it, I might as well REALLY not enjoy it. That's why in the middle of the workday I now eat this:
I know.
Have you ever seen such a delightful repast?
A green shake of indeterminate substance, nuts that only taste good when they're packaged with chocolate, raisins and cranberries in trail mix (except in this case none of those things, just bark-flavored nuts) and a multi-vitamin.
Delicious.
I've traded a sad desk salad for Squirrel Third Date Dinner.
This is the point where you should start to wonder about my mental state. This guy used to get Chinese food for lunch, and pizza, and salads of color and joy. Has he given up? Is he OK? Is this all a desperate cry for help?
It's OK. I'm in the awkward and not-fun process of redefining my relationship with food. I think I need to see it for what it is – calories that keep me alive – rather than how I used to see it – pleasure.
It took four decades, but I finally figured out that pleasure for me can't be found at the bottom of a take-out container of kung pao chicken. Believe me. I looked. A lot. Everywhere. All the time. It's not in there.
I'll cook pleasurable food for my family and will eat pleasurable food socially, but I can't keep looking at every meal as a potential rendezvous with the divine.
Food's job is to keep me alive. That's it. I'm looking elsewhere for pleasure, for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that on the pleasure scale, food is simple and cheap and easy, whereas pleasures like love and creativity are harder but more rewarding and won't leave you filled with shopping depression. As a grown man, it's time to finally grow beyond obsessing all day about what I can dip in ranch for dinner. (Everything, friend.)
I know what some of you will say – don't make diet choices that are not sustainable. That green shake and those bark nuts will get old. Maybe. But I think there's a 50 percent chance I can make the leap and turn lunch into a bridge between morning and dinner instead of just being first dinner.
Also, not going to lie, I hate tracking what I eat on the app thing, so it's possible I'm doing all this just to avoid having to tally up the carbs on one more meal and I'm mentally justifying this philosophic pursuit of higher pleasures instead of admitting I am that lazy.
Whatever it takes.
Drum roll, please...
Starting weight: 187
Last week: 183
This week: 182
Goal: 170
I’m interested to see what a full week of the new sad lunch routine gets me next week.
Shout-outs
I am happy for my “Jimmy,” who says he is down 8 pounds in three weeks and feels better mentally. Jimmy is my friend who has the morning routine I shared a few weeks back. I suspect an under-appreciated thing about dieting is that taking some control of your life and living it with intention just makes you feel better, as opposed to feeling like you have no control of your life and are not stronger mentally than a donut is delicious.
Guys – it's going to take me forever to lose this weight, and that's OK. I made my peace with it. All it means is that we have more time to help each other. Do you want a buddy to check in with on some goal of your own? I'm here for you. Leave a comment or shoot me a message. More Laura, Ryun, Michell and Jimmys are welcome.
Sounds like you are making some new habit choices which may become something you come to enjoy one day.
Keep going! You will get there. 💪🏼
Again, I had to laugh at this because I, too, eat lunch at my desk and shake my salad to distribute the dressing in hope that I can use less of it. I do like salads though and try to vary what I add to them so it's not the same thing all the time. But they do get boring sometimes.
What I have been doing lately is packing leftovers from dinner the night before. I have mastered roasting, stir frying and cooking vegetables to make them more palatable. I avoid potatoes and rice (and even pasta) and usually cook some sort of chicken or the occasional beef. At least I have access to a microwave to reheat my lunch.
But the real issue with me is my relationship with food. I can't imagine people who are thin thinking about food. Do they just eat and get on with their day or do they spend the day thinking about their next meal? Is it metabolism that makes them different or am I just a glutton? And I am not huge, I would just like to lose an additional 15 - 20 pounds (down 25 from my highest weight). But I don't know if I could ever feel thin because that scale is always staring at me. Maybe I'm just crazy.
Congratulations on the one pound! Same for me and now I am back to my pre-Thanksgiving weight. Onward! Have a good week.