Last week was a bit of a struggle between a night out, several closes at work, and a day where Liz and I tossed our hands up in the air and just didn’t count a day. In preparation for the night out – a paint night where we made some nice signs, I took advantage of some unseasonably nice weather and walked. A lot. I ended up earning nearly 150 FitPoints between walking and the gym which allowed for defensive planning. All those FitPoints ended up going to my head though as our Sunday morning weigh-in had sobering news.
Liz, who “just knew” she was going to gain, was down .4 pounds. I, who had buckets of FitPoints and had rolled over over 50 weekly points and other fun stuff, was somehow up .6 pounds. Odds are I was retaining salt from the day before but given my trajectory .6 might as well have psychologically been 6.6. Mind you, I was given the grace to still be at 50 pounds lost, but it still felt a bit demoralizing and I know I’m sounding a bit petulant here. A rough day at work after weighing in didn’t help matters at all.
Yesterday, scrolling through Instagram, I saw a post from the husband of one of my many cousins showing a picture of McDonald’s revived Szechuan Sauce, a limited time revival based on a meme from the cartoon “Rick and Morty” which itself was originally a limited time offering for the original release of Disney’s Mulan 20 years ago. I will openly admit to having thought the sauce was “okay” in its original incarnation – decent with McNuggets, better with rice, bad when left in the glove compartment of Mom’s 95 Geo Metro hatchback for a month. In fact, this was the first time I was on plan, a time when I had to choose between McNuggets or fries and not take both. Looking through the app, I realize that I can swing this. A 4 piece McNuggets, a small fries, and said sauce would be a third of my daily points but with dinner and breakfast planned for it was more than doable. After a day of walking, trying in vain to find Trader Joe’s Shepherd’s Pie, and even hitting a meeting, I dove right in.
Prior to going on Weight Watchers, I would eat a LOT of fast food on top of the selections of not-so fast food work would have on offer; having a long commute often meant getting dinner on the way home as a means to eat and kill time. Once I started plan, fast food became a lot rarer of an occurrence and once I began working closer to home the need went down. Then Freestyle started and with it any advantages fast food had went away as what was once a meal that could be a quarter of my daily points became a third or more. Things such as protein bars and hard boiled eggs became my friend as I no longer saw any advantages to food such high in points.
While the sauce was “okay” as I remembered it, I started to realize that this wasn’t just about memes or sauce or nostalgia of the 90s. It was also about nostalgia of a far more recent past where I would’ve gotten a Buttermilk Chicken Sandwich AND two Buttermilk Chicken Tenders AND a large fries AND this sauce. A past where I would’ve probably have thrown up in my mouth not even an hour later. A past where I felt sluggish and I was expanding out of my pants. I realized that I was able to make my peace with fast food, that it’s good as a sometimes thing once in a while if you plan for and around it. Was it good to see what the hype was about? Yes. Would I potentially do it again? Sans fries for sure.
Am I happy that my current commute kills most of the viability of fast food in my life? You bet. Besides, if I hadn’t learned to healthy eat who would know that McDonald’s fries and McCormick’s Sriracha Black Pepper make a good pair!
The Incredible Shrinking Couple 