Day 1, Middle-aged-Woman Boot Camp, eight long weeks as a run-up and push-through for the holiday season.! So unlike me! — by spending a ridiculous amount of dollars on fresh fruits and vegetables — including cauliflower and broccoli, EGADS! I hate those so much — at an actual grocery establishment (no Amazon delivery for this girl!). I printed things like menus, and recipes, and instructions — instructions! I was prepared prepared, a week ahead of the game with Halloween looming and still I was good. No s’mores last night, no bite-size chocolate bits, none of that. Mentally honed, I would say.
Cut to today, Go Time: I’ve been on this ride four hours and I need a re-do.
At six this morning, my phone subtly woke me with pinging tones, alerting me to positive, uplifting, inspirational notes from the trainer, the one leading us into a no-guilt Christmas. I was all in, roused and ready to hit the tile with a tentative unsocked foot and a full-on desire to do well today.
Plus, the other impetus for getting up before the sun even titillated the horizon, it was time to get the Bubs to school, so I knew coffee — black coffee, two tablespoons of sugar-free creamer (shudder) — was nigh.
Last night I prepped breakfast with a thing called overnight oatmeal: dry oats, skim milk, chia seeds, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. To which I was to add plain greek yogurt, peanut butter, strawberries, and blueberries.
I was looking forward to the fruit portion.
But first, I dropped the Bubs in his hall of learning before dashing to the kitchen for coffee, for which I promptly ignored the mandate of sugar-free things and temperance in measure.. Hey, a jug of Stokes iced coffee in the fridge, I could NOT let that go to waste, though it doesn’t strenuously follow my new eating lifestyle.
Toes on the starting line and I’d already cheated.
Next came actual caloric ingestion, an oaty sludge covered in fruit that I choked down by the light of the televised morning news.
Breakfast was a gray color, of thick, not-enough-moisture wallpaper glue consistency, and oatmeal was already not my favorite food, so yeah, I didn’t look at it, just ate. It was a paste, a horrible gelatinous rubbery taste sandwiched between fruit that didn’t deserve this ignominious fate.
It was only after contemplating a new tack — for instance, punting the boot camp entirely — that I realized I had forgotten to add yogurt. And peanut butter. You know, the stuff that would have been a tremendous asset in forcing breakfast.
Now I’m on my second cup of coffee, no judgment, and twenty-fourth ounce of refreshing cool water and I have yet to get ten feet away from a restroom.
Here’s another funny: Day One of New Life, and today happens to be Book Club Day, which is more “Foodies who Read” than “Book Nerds who Eat.” It’s a monthly meet-up at restaurants on Memorial Road — ten years of club meetings and I can’t think of more than 2 held anywhere other than Memorial Road — and this time the selected locale is a Dog Park/Human Cafe. Well. Who wouldn’t punt a Diet — Excuse me, Improved Way of Eating Lifestyle Change — on Day One in favor of eating nachos with a poodle looking on??
I’m all in for Book Club, can’t let that opportunity down. I’ll have water with whatever delight the menu allows in the 400 calorie range; sounds like fruit cup and a single cracker, one that a beagle will salivate near, hoping I’ll toss it to him, but sorry, pooch, with only a 400 calorie allowance, I’ll need every morsel. Though, now that I consider it, I believe I have a bit of leeway, seeing as how I ate only half of the prescribed morning meal…
