Living in the land of plenty

My daughter keeps telling me I look skinny.  When she hugs me, she says I feel skinny.  I'm pretty happy with my weight now (149.6), even though I wouldn't mind losing just five more pounds.  If I got below 145 I'd probably bake a pie or make biscuits and gravy, because I'm not trying to keep the weight off for vanity's sake, heaven knows.  I know I'm healthier at the lower weight, and I like the idea of wearing size 12 jeans (maybe that's vanity?).  Cliff and I got through Thanksgiving eating pretty much what we wanted for a couple of days, gained 2 or 3 pounds each, then got right back to our normal routine and lost it quickly.  

The thing is, it's easier than it used to be, which is still surprising to me.  For one thing, my tastes have changed somewhat.  For instance, pizza used to be a favorite; we all know how packed with cheesy calories, sodium, and fat it is, but I would go to sleep thinking of pizza and then awake next morning knowing I had to order a pizza.  Not so now, although I still like it... but when we're driving around and decide to eat out, I never choose pizza.  I'm always the one to choose, by the way, because Cliff says, "I eat good at home.  You get to decide where we eat."

Can you believe Burger King ranks higher on my "craving" list than pizza these days?  That isn't an improvement, of course, because that meal of Whopper-with-cheese, small fries, and a soft drink contains significant amounts of calories-sodium-fat with a grand total of almost 1500 calories.  But it doesn't seem to affect me much.  For one thing, when I eat so much at noon, I'm not hungry that evening, so I don't eat anything else that day.  

We like to eat at Tuscano's, which has the advantage of being closer to home than anything in the big city.  They serve such huge portions, though, that we've taken to splitting a meal, usually their lasagna.  When I first suggested splitting the meal, Cliff was more in favor of each of us having our own full meal, then taking some home for supper; but as I told him, that gives us two meals in one day of too many calories, too much fat and salt.  After splitting the meal one time, Cliff was convinced.  By the way, since he never wants to choose where we eat, I usually choose someplace he enjoys, which means Tuscano's, Burger King, or the Mexican place at Lexington (SO close to home!).  Perhaps once a year I'll ask for KFC, which he isn't crazy about.  But the nearest KFC at Oak Grove is so filthy, the floor so grease-covered, I don't think I'll be wanting to eat there again.  

I mentioned how my tastes are changing:  I haven't been a huge pop-drinker for years, but I used to buy a case of Pepsi to keep around for those evenings when I have popcorn for supper.  Somewhere in the last year or two, though, Pepsi started tasting awful to me.  I thought I'd gotten a bad batch of it, but when I offered relatives a can of it to taste for me, they all said there was nothing different or wrong about it.  Since then I've found Coke turned on me too.  Mighty peculiar!  Cliff enjoys Diet Coke, which always tasted watered-down and weak to me, as do diet drinks.  

Yesterday it was just me and Cliff, so I rode with him for his last radiation treatment and then suggested we eat at the Mexican place in Lexington.  We always get their quesadilla-fajita (we don't split it), and it's all I can do to finish it.  In fact, I don't eat the rice that comes with it because if I did, I'd couldn't eat the good stuff.  There's only room for so much in my belly!  I backslid after the fine meal yesterday, though.  I don't keep ice cream at home, so I wanted some Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia.  I went in the local grocery store and paid way too much for a pint of it and told Cliff, "I don't care how much you eat, but I'm eating half of it (one cup)."

Not one to turn down food, Cliff took the other half.  Not only was it freezer-burned, but it had obviously half-melted and frozen back hard.  Very hard.  And yet, just to show you our old, gluttonous ways still lurk beneath the surface, both of us ate every bite of it, complaining as we ate.  That's the stupidest thing ever!  We ate something that wasn't really good, just because it was there and I had paid good money for it.  

Some things never change.  Some people don't, either.  

On a positive note, my weight was less this morning than yesterday, probably because I didn't eat anything else after the Mexican food and the lousy ice cream.  Perhaps I've found the key to losing weight and keeping it off:  Don't eat supper if your noon meal is ridiculously large.  At least it seems to work for me, although Cliff doesn't believe in going without a meal, so he always has to have something in the evening.  Last night it was an egg sandwich.

I may start blogging about food quite a bit, since it's hard to find blog topics when I'm sitting around the house reading.  I won't be blogging about dieting, though.  Just food in general.  Because I can talk about food all day.

Peace.