Have it Your Way, they say!

How in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks did I end up at Burger King? Why did I eat Burger King? What excuses did I make up in my head for it to be okay? How was I feeling?

So yesterday, I mapped my whole day out. I had a long evening with my doctoral class. I wouldn’t see home until about 10pm. I packed breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack (maybe?) I pretty much accounted for everything regarding food, even had my cleansing tea and green tea packed.  What I did NOT account for was my emotions, we can’t plan our emotions right. Anyway I had worked all day, multi-tasking between monitoring state testing with my students and completing my doctoral class work. So how did I end up at Burger King? It’s 3pm and I was finished for the day. I made it up in my mind that I wanted something good, something comforting, something rewarding for my hard work. I did not want the grilled jerk chicken breast I packed paired with a tasty spinach salad. 

What I wanted was something fat and salty. I was going to drive home (class begins at 5pm) to put a hot sausage on the grill and French fries in the oven but as time would have it, there wasn’t enough of it. So I figured if I went to the university library (another thing I was rewarding myself for) I would stop at Burger King on the way.  All of this happened in a matter of less than 7 minutes (the rationalizing in my head). While in the drive thru, there was a plethora of choices, semi-healthy and the ultimate but seemingly delightful sins to a fat 2 fit transformer.  An oreo milkshake was being debuted, it was like the small NEW label under the shake, said (try me I’m new).  Believe me, I’ve had my fair share of oreos and ice cream in my lifetime but at the time I wanted to try it, simply because it was.. ahem *NEW*.. So the server asks, small, med, or large? I opted for a small because well ya know I’m transforming, a small can’t be that bad. “Will that be all she asked?” Ummmm.. I began uttering.. a small fry, 4 piece nuggets, and a bacon cheeseburger all from the value menu. The fries paired with the milkshake was the perfect sweet & salty combo (matter of fact Chick-fil-a has a combo with shake & French fries now, they know!) In my head I was like here you go, binging again.. who needs a burger & nuggets.. The fries well you know how that goes, once you pop a fry in your mouth, the fun doesn’t stop. I was semi-satisfied though the sweet, creamy milkshake with the salty, fat fries was comforting enough. 

But what about the nuggets and the burger? Hmm.. lemme taste one nugget I convinced myself, eh ok, I thought and kept eating til the 4^th one I was like this is gross. So I bit into the burger, gross again and didn’t return for any bites.  The thing is I don’t feel guilty about the choices, I feel informed. Informed enough to know that I don’t have to eat that kind of food anymore. I need to better control my emotions and it wasn’t worth it. The weird thing is it’s been awhile since I ate BK or any fast food of that sort and it tasted fake. I’d much rather make my own versions at home than to succumb to over-processed, cheap drive thru food.  It’ll be awhile before I do that again.  It’s like when you stop eating that kind of food, the taste becomes foreign, but if it’s an everyday occurrence it becomes a preference, an addiction. Food addiction is real and the food industry knows.

Choose wisely friends.