You may have noticed that I haven't written in a while. You also might have noticed that the challenge should have ended a couple weeks ago. While both of those observations are true, what you don't know is that my sister somehow convinced me to carry my Flamin' Hot fast through lent all the way to Easter. At the time I was almost psyched about the idea. I had been doing so well I thought, hey, what's another two and a half weeks, right? Now all I can think is that right now I could be satisfying this persistent rumbling in my stomach with a handful (or twenty) of Cheetos. But next Sunday is Easter and that night I plan to celebrate the Lord's victory over death with a big bag of cheesy goodness and reruns of Psych (a show I largely enjoy because its main characters also understand the importance of satisfying snacks). This doesn't mean, however, that I have gained nothing from this experience. In fact here are a few reflections on this challenge as it comes to an end:
1) I can go without Cheetos...In a week I will have successfully gone one month, three weeks, and four days without eating Flamin Hots, a feat I had previously thought impossible. In the past couple of weeks, I have even stopped thinking about them so frequently, going entire days without craving them. That is something I truly never thought possible. And I like to think that after this is all over, I will be able to indulge in a handful of Cheetos without going overboard. But somehow I think that avoiding them completely will prove easier than portion control.
2) I should not go without Cheetos completely...Although this challenge helped me to achieve the intended goal of detoxing my system, I can't say that it improved my diet. All of the time I spent eating Cheetos was simply replaced with time spent being hungry and wishing I had some Cheetos. And sometimes with Nutella. But mostly hunger. I'd tell myself, hey, instead of Cheetos, why not eat an apple? And then I'd go to the refrigerator, open the door, stare at its contents for a few seconds and then close it and grab the jar of Nutella or bag of chocolate chips from the pantry. My meals continued to consist mostly of chips and salsa (or just salsa), although my mac n cheese intake did drastically decline. So while I definitely have learned the value of portion control, it is not all that beneficial to cut out Cheetos completely.
3) I can't think of another reflection so here's a story...During the first winter at our new/current house, when I was eight or nine, there was a HUGE snowstorm. The snow in my backyard was up to my thighs and there were super tall drifts along the fence that were well above my waist. I was playing in one of these snow drifts with my Dad nearby. Keep in mind that it was snowing so heavily that I could barely see my Dad even though he was only standing a few feet away. Also, keep in mind that I have never had a really good handle on keeping my imagination from influencing my perception of reality. Anyway, I had been climbing onto the fence and jumping off into the mountain of snow below. I did this again but this time my Dad began yelling at me in an old man voice. Because the snow was impairing my vision, I thought that I had fallen onto the other side of the fence and that it was my grumpy neighbor who was yelling at me. My Dad then began to kick me repeatedly and shout, "Get out of my yard! This is MY YARD! GET OUTTA HERE!"
In tears, I was shrieking "DADDY! DADDY HELP ME!" and thrashing around in the snow, trying blindly to find the fence so I could throw myself over it back into the safety of my own yard. Eventually, my Dad realized that I was not joking along with him and was in fact not laughing, but crying hysterically.
He stopped kicking me and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Dad? Is that you?"
"Yeeeah...who else would I be?"
"I...don't know."
"Okay. Let's go inside."
And so ended one of the most terrifying events of my life.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Food Wars
Well, I'm about halfway to the finish line and going strong! I wish I could say it's gotten easier, that I still don't fantasize every day about ripping open a bag of Flamin' Hots even just to smell their cheesy aroma. But that would be an outright lie. I have, however, had less of a temptation to actually leave the house and walk to Meijer to buy a bag. And when I do happen to go grocery shopping for my Mom with her credit card and instructions to buy whatever I want, I can trust myself to pick up a bag of tortilla chips and then walk right by the Frito Lay section. Not that I don't think about buying a bag and never telling anyone, but my commitment to this challenge is too strong.
And this is certainly not the first food-related challenge that I've taken on. But this is the first one that involves NOT eating food. I can chug a mixture of fruit punch, Tabasco, garlic, and chow mien without hesitation or force down a cup of week-old coffee remnants, dish soap and mold, but when dared to simply not eat Cheetos, I laughed at the impossibility of the suggestion. I think I can more effectively empathize with my friend who lost one of our food challenges and had to go two weeks without eating meat of any kind. And he loves meat. I mean LOVES it. It's possible he loves meat more than I love Cheetos....Ha ha ha ha ha...oh that's funny. But seriously, he's driven over two hours on several occasions just to go to some steak place where they apparently sell really good steaks. But the steaks are raw so you still have to drive all the way home and prepare it yourself. It's like the Ikea of steak venues. That's my understanding of it anyway. So those two weeks were pure agony for him. And all I had to do was drink a little condiment cup full of cold nacho cheese mixed with pickle juice. We had spent the whole night arguing about animals rights and vegetarianism (I think it's clear who was on which side of the argument) and then he said, "Jackie, if you drink this entire cup of pickled cheese, I will go until Thanksgiving without eating meat." Unfortunately for him, we didn't know each other all that well yet and he really thought I wouldn't do it. Poor fool. I looked at him and then I picked up that cup and gulped it down like it was liquid Cheetos. Of course, I'm really not good at chugging things quickly so cheese was falling down the sides of my mouth and dropping into globs onto the table. It was not a pretty sight and I honestly think watching me drink that curdled cheese must have been worse than actually drinking it.
That was the first in a long line of food challenges between the two of us. This also happens to be the same friend who caught me with Cheeto dust all over my teeth a few months later. Fortunately for me, he always settled for the worse end of the challenge. He would challenge me to eat something, like chicken strips marinated in grape juice (which was surprisingly tasty) or a bowl of red pepper flakes and after I succeeded I would later give him a follow up challenge that was inevitably worse than the one he'd given me. I may have even taken one challenge a tad too far. But he survived and now we can laugh about it. Well, I can laugh about it. He's still bitter. This particular challenge started out fairly easy. He had to put two Alka Seltzer tablets in his mouth and then chug half a bottle of cherry coke. The intention was for the soda to fizz up so much that he wouldn't be able to drink it and he would ultimately fail the challenge. But with impressive speed, he not only swallowed both tablets but drank the entire bottle of soda. So technically, he had already completed the challenge at this point. But I was so disappointed that he had succeeded so easily that I egged him on to swallow the one remaining Alka Seltzer tablet, which he did. What I didn't tell him was that after three tablets the pressure created by its dissolving increases exponentially (thank you Mythbusters). So for about a minute he stood there bragging about how that was the easiest challenge he'd ever done and how mine would be so much worse. And then he stopped moving and got this pained looked on his face and said something along the lines of, "What...did you do to me?"
As a general rule of our food challenges, you must refrain from puking for ten minutes after completing the challenge or you still lose. So for ten minutes he stood silent and motionless with his eyes closed and one hand against a wall while I shouted, "Hey, do some jumping jacks!" and "Want me to bring you a burrito or something from the dining hall to wash down that Cherry Coke?" But I gotta give him credit, he held out for what was probably the longest ten minutes of his life. He later told me that for three hours he laid in bed wondering if he was going to die from the pain in his stomach. Sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that third tablet. But he did make me suffer for several long hours in return while I ate an entire orange. I mean the whole thing. Including the peel.
So, all that to say, I've eaten a lot of things that would make my sister gag just thinking about them, but this is still the toughest challenge I have yet to tackle. Although the orange is a close second. But my resolve it strong and I'm halfway there!
And this is certainly not the first food-related challenge that I've taken on. But this is the first one that involves NOT eating food. I can chug a mixture of fruit punch, Tabasco, garlic, and chow mien without hesitation or force down a cup of week-old coffee remnants, dish soap and mold, but when dared to simply not eat Cheetos, I laughed at the impossibility of the suggestion. I think I can more effectively empathize with my friend who lost one of our food challenges and had to go two weeks without eating meat of any kind. And he loves meat. I mean LOVES it. It's possible he loves meat more than I love Cheetos....Ha ha ha ha ha...oh that's funny. But seriously, he's driven over two hours on several occasions just to go to some steak place where they apparently sell really good steaks. But the steaks are raw so you still have to drive all the way home and prepare it yourself. It's like the Ikea of steak venues. That's my understanding of it anyway. So those two weeks were pure agony for him. And all I had to do was drink a little condiment cup full of cold nacho cheese mixed with pickle juice. We had spent the whole night arguing about animals rights and vegetarianism (I think it's clear who was on which side of the argument) and then he said, "Jackie, if you drink this entire cup of pickled cheese, I will go until Thanksgiving without eating meat." Unfortunately for him, we didn't know each other all that well yet and he really thought I wouldn't do it. Poor fool. I looked at him and then I picked up that cup and gulped it down like it was liquid Cheetos. Of course, I'm really not good at chugging things quickly so cheese was falling down the sides of my mouth and dropping into globs onto the table. It was not a pretty sight and I honestly think watching me drink that curdled cheese must have been worse than actually drinking it.
That was the first in a long line of food challenges between the two of us. This also happens to be the same friend who caught me with Cheeto dust all over my teeth a few months later. Fortunately for me, he always settled for the worse end of the challenge. He would challenge me to eat something, like chicken strips marinated in grape juice (which was surprisingly tasty) or a bowl of red pepper flakes and after I succeeded I would later give him a follow up challenge that was inevitably worse than the one he'd given me. I may have even taken one challenge a tad too far. But he survived and now we can laugh about it. Well, I can laugh about it. He's still bitter. This particular challenge started out fairly easy. He had to put two Alka Seltzer tablets in his mouth and then chug half a bottle of cherry coke. The intention was for the soda to fizz up so much that he wouldn't be able to drink it and he would ultimately fail the challenge. But with impressive speed, he not only swallowed both tablets but drank the entire bottle of soda. So technically, he had already completed the challenge at this point. But I was so disappointed that he had succeeded so easily that I egged him on to swallow the one remaining Alka Seltzer tablet, which he did. What I didn't tell him was that after three tablets the pressure created by its dissolving increases exponentially (thank you Mythbusters). So for about a minute he stood there bragging about how that was the easiest challenge he'd ever done and how mine would be so much worse. And then he stopped moving and got this pained looked on his face and said something along the lines of, "What...did you do to me?"
As a general rule of our food challenges, you must refrain from puking for ten minutes after completing the challenge or you still lose. So for ten minutes he stood silent and motionless with his eyes closed and one hand against a wall while I shouted, "Hey, do some jumping jacks!" and "Want me to bring you a burrito or something from the dining hall to wash down that Cherry Coke?" But I gotta give him credit, he held out for what was probably the longest ten minutes of his life. He later told me that for three hours he laid in bed wondering if he was going to die from the pain in his stomach. Sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that third tablet. But he did make me suffer for several long hours in return while I ate an entire orange. I mean the whole thing. Including the peel.
So, all that to say, I've eaten a lot of things that would make my sister gag just thinking about them, but this is still the toughest challenge I have yet to tackle. Although the orange is a close second. But my resolve it strong and I'm halfway there!
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