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How I got healthy on my summer vacation.

It’s been over eight weeks since I had chocolate chip cookie dough, fresh from the oven, still warm and gooey fudge brownies or even a piece of bread. I’ve been staying as far away from white flour, white sugar, and white rice as I possibly can. They aren’t nutritious no matter how you slice ‘em.

I don’t go overboard and avoid ketchup because it contains some modicum of sugar. No, I stay away from ketchup because I’m not fond of the taste. You can add potatoes to that short list too.

I started eating better the day after we arrived in Texas. I was planning on starting a day later than that but was encouraged, well more like bullied into it a day early. It’s exactly what I needed or I may never have started.

I had complained to a friend that while changing in the hotel bathroom on the move down I had seen myself  without clothes, in fluorescent lighting, in a floor length mirror no less, for the first time in literally years. It was a fifteen second horror flick that left eyes burning. I still have nightmares. Ugh!

I refused to weigh myself before I started this new eating plan because I was afraid it would be a number far beyond what I had ever seen on a scale, even higher than when I had carried another human inside of me. Okay, actually I knew it would be. I kind of wish now that I had. I’d like to know exactly how much or how many peoples worth of weight I’ve lost. All my pants are loose and that’s the only thing I have to go by.

Beyond the benefit of weight loss I just feel so much better. I want to eat like this from now on. That’s why I didn’t call it a diet but an eating plan. The problem is, it seems to get some people bent out of shape when they see me refusing to put something in my mouth that they enjoy eating. That in itself won’t stop me from eating the way I want but I’d love to come up with a planned response that helps people deal with it better.

“I’m allergic or it makes me sick,” besides being a lie would make me sound a bit like a hypochondriac.

“I don’t like it,” makes me sound too picky.

“None for me, I want to look like Angelina Jolie before I turn fifty,” sounds stupid and impossible.

“Old women like me aren’t supposed to eat anything enjoyable anymore,” might work unless it’s an old woman like me offering the poison.

Eating to live rather than living to eat is a hard thing to manage in a country where food is abundant and nearly a worshiped idol at every gathering.

I guess I’ll just stick with my famous, “No thank you,” and put up with the weird looks for now.