In talking with my sister about my eating habits, I’m reminded of the Remo Williams movie that I enjoyed seeing as a kid:
Horrible Asian stereotypes aside, what I mostly remembered was the minimalist diet that the Chuin character forced Remo to follow (this is better detailed in the book), pretty much forcing a mindset that food is fuel, no more and no less.
My mindset these days are similar enough — food as fuel — that my diet is, as my sister noticed, repetitive.
Breakfast: 1 store-brand Pop Tart (usually brown sugar or strawberry because it’s cheap), 1/2 cup of skim milk, 1 mug of poor man’s mocha (1 T chocolate mix, 1 T instant coffee, 5 T creamer, 2 T of no-cal sweetener, hot water to dissolve everything, 1/2 skim milk, cinnamon powder to taste) + a multivitamin.
Mid-morning snack: Mug of coffee with creamer and no-cal sweetener and the other Pop Tart. (Usually at my desk).
Lunch: 1 protein bar + 1 store-brand version of SlimFast (usually between classes)
Mid-afternoon snack/tea-time: a largish meal of a sandwich (turkey, chicken, or PB&J), crackers, juice, followed with poor-man’s mocha and water (usually when I return home from work)
Dinner: Similar to above if the mid-afternoon snack was a small one.
Nightcap: small cup of poor man’s mocha, but decaf.
Rinse, lather, repeat. The largish meal of sandwich can also be a small bowl or a salad plate of something, like spaghetti or rotisserie chicken on top of a salad. But that’s pretty much the only time I have true variety in my eating.
Since I am often hard-pressed to exercise in earnest (half-assed attempts on the stationary bike notwithstanding), I count my calories throughout the day, the preferred range being somewhere between 1400-1600 calories.
Since I always take a multivitamin and make sure I get carbs, protein, fiber, and some form of plant matter (often in the juice), I don’t get malnourished having such a boring diet.
Except that I don’t find it boring — maybe having a childhood filled with leftover hospital food (my mom used to work in a hospital cafeteria) and overstocked MREs (my father used to be a Navy StoreKeeperChief [SKC]) has made me be a barbarian when it comes to food.
Either way, I can eat the same leftovers for days on end until they’re gone, so this eating regimen — which I’ve been on for pretty much since the separation early last year — hasn’t gotten old for me.
Food as fuel. Eh — it’s cheap, it’s filling, it hasn’t killed me yet.
lizardqueen
