Whoa.

Today has been an eye-opener on many levels.

This morning, I was stirring natural peanut butter into our morning bowls o' oatmeal and I licked the teaspoon that I'd measured out the peanut butter with. I contemplated the taste and suddenly something struck me. "Hey," I told my Hub, "I really like natural peanut butter. I mean, I think I like it better than the other stuff."

"Yeah," he said, "me too."

This is a startling idea. I never have the feeling that I want to binge on natural peanut butter the way that I have on regular peanut butter. I like that it tastes more like peanuts. I like that it's up-front and honest about the oil-- it's right there to see when you open the jar-- instead of hiding it inside. I like that it can swing both ways in terms of sweet and savory.

It's... wow. This has made peanut butter into an ingredient for me. Like olive oil, or scallions-- something that I like, but that isn't something you eat on its own, or eat a lot of. WOW.

All I can think is that it must be that there's no added sugar. And that led me to consider the fact that in the past six weeks on BFL, I've been very low on refined carbs and refined sugar. By actual choice. And by this point I don't really want it. I mean, holy shit, my favorite candies used to be the kind that was almost entirely sugar and flavoring-- Nerds, Sprees, Pixie Sticks, Smarties, circus peanuts (I know, I know), anything like that. Chocolate came in second. Now? Now I think of that stuff and I swear to God, I instantly get the sensation of an oncoming headache. Wow. When did that happen? I mean, seriously, when the hell did that happen? If there was something I did to make that happen, I wish to God I'd been aware of what it was-- because if I lose this again, I need to know how to get it back!

Here's another weird thing: I'm noticing that I want the "splurge" meals less and less. That is, until I have one, and then I don't want to stop-- I start veering out of control in a big way and it's dead hard to pull out of the tailspin. It's become a definite pattern, and-- God help me-- I'm starting to kind of dread the splurge meals because of what follows. I don't like the pattern. I don't feel like the food I'm eating is worth the way it makes me feel.

(Fuck-a-doodle-doo. I sound like some kind of fervently earnest weight-loss book. I swear to God I thought this shit was something that happened to other people but not to me. Apparently I was smacked upside the head with the dumbass stick at some point in my childhood, because I was dead wrong.)

That said, I don't think it's a good idea to take away the splurge meals, because life is not perfect, I am not perfect, and it's better that I practice my regrouping strategies under optimal circumstances than avoid the practice and then not have those habits in place when I need them. I'm not sure if that makes sense anywhere outside my head. I'm downright afraid of not practicing-- I'm more afraid of losing control on the larger scale, of completely losing my lifestyle, than I am of having two meals a week when the Inner Cartman comes out to play (feeling like something of a Godzilla-sized Cartman) and makes me lose control. It's like there's a muscle in my brain that I need to exercise weekly so that it doesn't atrophy, so that when I really need it I'm able to call on that strong "regroup" muscle and regroup every. damn. time. Forever.

Back to the sugar thing. It really struck me today, right down to the bone, that the way I think about what I eat is changing. (Note: "what", not "why" or "when" or "how"-- for all of those, I'm still dealing with the daily struggle and hoping to reach the point where they are natural preferences, too.) Given the choice, I eat food that will fuel me properly and keep my energy up. I like that. I'm becoming much more dismissive of "fake" food that isn't going to fill me up and isn't going to keep me going and isn't all that tasty. I think the main reason I've been able to avoid those crap chocolates in my office all week is because I have this very clear idea in my mind of what they'll taste like-- that dry, grainy thing you get with lousy chocolate. (My Hub reports that the chocolate bars-- another type of candy that was distributed at the meetings-- were waxy. Ew.)

Holy crap. I think I've hit that point. My preferences are starting to align with what I've been taught and the things I've been trying and trying to learn. I can't express how cool this is.


In purely food news:

Today we ate out at lunch, after the driver's license renewal (I look great in my pic but also look like I might bite somebody). I ordered a turkey burger (actual Jenny-O lean, hooray!) that came with a side salad and potatoes and a tiny bowl of fruit. And God help me, I got picky. Too much bun, for one thing; unseasoned turkey, for another thing. (Thankfully, no mayonnaise.) I took burger off bun and doused burger with hot sauce. Ate the burger. Ate the fruit. Ate a little of the bun, but got really bored with it really fast. Didn't touch the potatoes; they didn't interest me. Tried the side salad and discovered that it was literally dripping with some kind of vinagrette; it was weirdly sweet and neither I nor my Hub cared for it at all. So I really didn't end up eating much off my plate at all, and yet I was full.

Here's the other thing: I didn't feel bad about wasting food. I mean, this is seriously a first. I ate what I needed and left the rest and didn't give a shit about what the waitress would think or feel any guilt about picking at and playing with my food. It's so totally a self-confidence thing, I think. I feel special enough to act in a way that makes me stand out without worrying about what people will think-- particularly since 90% of the time nobody gives a shit anyway.

I'm making up more recipes. I threw together chicken, sweet onion and apple tacos last night, based on a recipe I glimpsed once. My Hub loved them. Today, I was searching for something to do with the groceries we have, and threw together a turkey bacon, onion, spinach, garlic, mushroom, and cottage cheese dip... well, it was going to be a dip, only I liked the confetti-like look it had to it, so I didn't run it through the food processor. I'm going to stuff it into those half-sized pita rounds as a wacky kind of sandwich.

And for something very special, I introduced my Hub to kumquats. He'd never had them before, and they were on sale for half off (sadly, while such things are cheap in California, where I was introduced to them, they're painfully expensive in Chicago). He LOVED them. Granted, this is the man who taught me to enjoy eating citrus peel, so kumquats are really right up his alley, but it still delighted the hell out of me that we were having this very special treat-- that was fresh fruit. We're getting the hang of this. Oh yes.

No Golden Pancakes for us tomorrow, 'cause we're out of cottage cheese. (Ack!) Now that I've got the kitchen stocked with BFL-appropriate foods, and I've got a good enough grasp of BFL to improvise, I can just grab some other things. I haven't had a good egg-white omlette for a while; that sounds like a good idea.

Since Sunday is going to be pretty heavy on the activities, I think I need to get my weekly cooking taken care of Saturday.

1) Turkey sloppy joe mix, to freeze.

2) Figure out a balanced carb/protein dip (without cottage cheese, this is going to be interesting... experiments with whey protein powder are in my future) to eat with cucumber chips.

3) Psudo-stroganoff. Whole-wheat egg noodles, ground extra-lean turkey. Figure it out, make it.

4) Start hashing out plans for next weekend, 'cause we're going to visit the in-laws. Oh my. I can handle this-- I just gotta figure out how.