Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hate How Much I Love You, Food

This is sort of like the Rihanna-Chris Brown relationship...without the physical abuse and bad lip-synching (Chris, not Rihanna). 

I love food.  When I say "love" I don't mean I have affectionate feelings for it.  No, indeed.  I LOVE food.  We're talking "love" as in how much Rose should have loved Jack in Titanic (I still maintain that if she had really loved him she would have made room for him on that big door.)  I'm talking Wesley and Buttercup.  I. Love. Food.

I also hate food.  I hate food the way Mrs. Hannigan hates orphans.  The way the bad guys on Scooby Doo always hated those meddling kids.  

I know love/hate relationships aren't good for you, but I'm pretty sure most people have similar feelings about some type of food.  Whether it's sweets, caffeinated drinks, dairy products.  We all have our vice(s).  I added the (s) there because I have multiple vices. 

I'm doing well on my healthy lifestyle changes (excluding the two week hiatus which I'm still blaming on Mardi Gras), but I have found that there are some foods that no matter how bad they are for me, I still love them.  I give them evil looks when I see them, yet there's longing behind the scorn.  It's like those dudes in Brokeback Mountain.  "I wish I could quit you!" 

Man, I'm doing a lot of Hollywood references today.  Forgive me.

So, in the spirit of hating to love foods, I figured I'd share with y'all some of my most beloved (and hated) foods:

Doritos
I've mentioned this vice more than once.  I love me some cheesy Dorito goodness.  It's ridiculous, really, how much I love Doritos.  I swear there's cocaine mixed in with the cheesy powder. 

Cheese
Basically anything with cheese in it is a vice of mine.  Cheddar cheese, cream cheese, mozarella cheese, colby jack.  You name it, I love it.  What's even better than cheese?

Bread with cheese
aka pizza. Or cheesy breadsticks.  Oh. Em. Gee.  I could eat my weight in cheesy bread.  (Note:  I never have, but I could.)

Chocolate
I'm not a huge chocolate fanatic.  I can go weeks, even months without chocolate.  That being said, if I do cave in and have one teensy tiny little piece of milk chocolate, it's Chocolatepalooza with me.  It opens the chocolate cravings floodgates, and that's all I want to eat.  I don't know what's up with that.  I've always kept my distance from chocolate for this very reason.  Again, I think there's cocaine in the chocolate.  (Am I turning into a conspiracy theorist?)

Ranch Dressing
I don't know about you people, but ranch dressing has always been more than just salad topping for me.  I can dip a multitude of foods into ranch.  Carrots (haha), pretzels, bread, crackers, potato chips (not Doritos), pizza.  Basically any food can go into ranch and come out tasting better.  This is why with my lifestyle change I've had to cut ranch almost completely out of my food options.  I use every other kind of salad dressing because it's always a little bit of salad with my ranch.  With the other dressings I can just put the bare minimum and have a healthy salad. 

So those are the biggest love/hates I have with food.  These are the foods most likely to contribute to any failures I may have on this journey.  I have realized that I can allow myself to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, sporadically throughout my meals.  With these foods though, I have to be on high guard because a little bit of these foods is never enough for me.  They are bandwagon abandoning aids. 

What foods are your biggest vices? Do any of you guys struggle with any specific foods? 

7 comments:

  1. Your list of bad food rocks.

    I'm a cheese hound too. Big time. I love pizza, cheesy bread, cheeeeeeese.

    I can also fill up rather embarassingly on truffles. DO NOT put a plate of those suckers in front of me, especially the one's with cake filling. I will crumble like a brick wall in a strong hurricane!

    Pancakes ='s NOM NOM NOM
    There goes another brick wall.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As mentioned in a previous post, I have forbidden cheez whiz from entering my home as I will nom my way through a jar of it in a matter of days. Bologna is a bad one as well. Unfortunately I can't as easily ban it because kids lunches. But I've gotten better at not mindlessly munching on it.

    Anything with cheese, oh and garlic bread.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I relate to this in a way that is deep and frightening. I'm the same way with chocolate, but I crave it in all of it's forms, syrup, bar, truffle, cake, pie, you name it. I also crave fruit which I know isn't bad for me, so it's cool that I'm that way now because it's a recent development. Go fruit! I eat apples and pineapple every day. I am a sucker for anything salty/sweet too. Honey roasted peanuts, salted caramel, chocolate pretzels. I can't be trusted with that stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cheese is my total weakness. I love to sit down with a chunk of cheese and a cheese slicer as I watch tv. I'm TRYING to limit that. Not entirely successfully.

    I do have one suggestion for you regarding ranch though. Buy a package of that ranch dip mix, a tub of fat-free cottage cheese, and some skim milk. Dump the entire tub of cottage cheese in your blender, and blend it until smooth, adding skim milk as needed so it will blend. I think I usually add about a half cup but I never really measured. Once it is smooth, dump in the package of dip mix and blend until it's mixed thoroughly.

    Ta-da! Fat free ranch. Delicious for veggie dip or as a salad dressing. :)

    Now if someone could just make fat free cheese taste good!

    ReplyDelete
  5. honestly nearly everything tastes better with cheese the only problem is i am now lactose intolerant :( also chocolate have to stay away as well. actually everything sweet....
    and ketchup plus mayo - mmhhh

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cream cheese is my ranch. I can find ways to add cream cheese to ANYthing. Spaghetti. Cake. Chicken. Butter. Fruit. Veggies. There is nothing that cream cheese doesn't go with. NOTHING.

    ReplyDelete