Eating consciously

I know that I love to eat. Always have, probably always will. I mentioned in my last post that I have gone 65 plus days without caffeinated beverages (I know that there is caffeine in chocolate and other things, but negligible at best). Now, my latest venture is cutting out fried foods. Let me tell you, its not the easiest thing in the world to do.

When you're used to a certain lifestyle, and you grow complacent in your eating styles, trying to cut things out of your diet is complicated. I never realized how many fried things I enjoyed eating. Chicken strips and fries are probably the hardest, plus, a lot of my favorite items at Mexican restaurants are deep fried as well. (is there such a thing as shallow fried food, and if so, is it healthier?)

Since last week when I made the post, I have eaten so much more consciously than ever before. Case in point -- yesterday, I had some Senior Sunday interviews to conduct almost immediately after church. I didn't have much time for a typical "Sunday Dinner", so Kristen and I got in the car to go grab something quick. Well, its literally impossible to grab something quick that is also rather healthy. We ended up at Sonic, buying salads. I got the Sante Fe Grilled Chicken Salad, and Kristen got a regular grilled chicken salad.

All Sonic salads come with a, get this, an onion ring. There, sitting on top of your healthy salad, is a greasy deep fried onion ring. I really wanted to eat it, and I even left it in my salad bowl, until I had a massive craving to eat it. Then, I took it out of my salad and put it on Kristen's plate and said "Eat it if you want, or throw it away, but I can't have it in front of me anymore."

I have found that the choices of eating is a complicated one. However, for the first time in 5 years, I'm eating better, and starting to feel better as well.