30 Day Baby Steps

I have to admit, I’m something of a tv junkie. I have multiple favorite shows and my DVR is always brimming with movies from TCM or tv shows that I simply have to catch up on (or game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals last year that will NOT be deleted anytime soon…speaking of, does anyone have a DVD recorder I can use?). One of the new shows that I’ve been watching for its existence of two shows is Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

If you don’t know, Jamie Oliver has gone to Huntington, West Virginia, the unhealthiest town in America, to give it a food makeover. He’s infiltrating the schools and changing the school lunches, opening up a kitchen and offering cooking classes FOR FREE and he’s helping out a family that all look like they’re overweight/obese/morbidly obese. It’s incredible what he’s doing and even though I’m no fan of reality shows, I actually feel like he’s genuinely interested in helping the citizens of this town.

But…

The town doesn’t want his help. He has (in these two episodes) met a LOT of resistance and attitude. Sure, there are some that are jumping on his bandwagon, but at the same time he’s forging the path not taken in that town and they don’t like it.

The most striking thing that I’ve noticed is in the second episode where he invites a group of elementary school children to his kitchen to do an experiment that has always worked for him in the schools and kitchens of England. He takes a whole chicken and cuts the good meat off (breast, legs, thighs, etc.) and he’s left with the bone carcass and gizzards and all the disgusting stuff. He shows them that the processed food manufacturers cut up the carcass, put all the nasty bits in a food processor, pulverizes them into a paste, strains it out through a strainer, adds flavoring and preservatives and then shapes them into the fun nuggets we all know and love. He does this, sprinkles bread crumbs on the “nugget meat” and asks the kids if they would still eat it. EVERY SINGLE ONE of those kids said YES.

Ugh.

It’s heartbreaking and dismal to see that this sort of thing is occurring with kids and what they’re able to eat. I know that there are a lot of kids out there that only get school lunches (if they get that at all) and it really makes me sad. And it’s not just Jamie Oliver’s show that’s bringing this problem to the forefront.

There’s a blog called Fed Up With Lunch where a teacher anonymously goes by Mrs. Q and eats the school lunch every single day. She eats exactly what the kids eat. And it’s disgusting. Her pictures of the pizza make me remember the days when I used to eat that pizza. And liked it. Now I cringe at what I see and can hardly believe that I willingly ate that garbage. I applaud her, Jamie Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama for bringing this school lunch disaster into the spotlight.

All this motivates me to try and eat healthier. Billy and I are on a good path–we’ve mostly cut out the chips and cookies and such for snacks and load up our shopping cart with a lot of fruit and veggies. They’re small changes, but they’re changes that will help us out over time to become healthier citizens.

**In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a brand new book that I’m reading. Well, rereading is more like it. All three of the books I mentioned previously are not light reading and I needed light reading in my life. What’s more perfect than The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for that?

In these past two weeks, I have eaten at two lovely restaurants for two special occaisions and maybe kinda sorta ate out a a few fast food places over the weekend while I was out and aboot. I know, it’s kinda pathetic. So has my blogging.

I find it particularly hard to blog about this month’s goal and last month’s goal because I find them both to be extremely boring. At least with January’s goal, there was something every day that felt different and hard and blog worthy. This month, I can’t help but think who cares if I go to a restaurant with my boyfriend for our four year anniversary? Or that I grabbed some lunch at Chick-fil-a before I began my volunteer shift at Oakland? Quite frankly, it’s boring. I don’t like to read boring posts and I’m sure that you don’t either.

As this month winds down, I hope to have an amazing and interesting few months ahead of me. Spring is just around the corner and my plan for next month is slightly lofty, but exciting. And nerve wracking since I’m pretty sure I don’t have THAT many friends. Hmm. But you’ll see. It’s going to be good. I figure I have about two more blog posts for this month then April comes with PICTURES!! OMG!!

The titles of my blog posts border on repetitive with the word ‘hard’ in them. Hmm.

I’m nearly halfway through the month and there might have been a few…mmm…slip-ups. The day when there was no food in the house and I hadn’t eaten anything? That was a weak moment. Maybe the time last night when Billy locked his keys in the car and I had to drive all the way to where he works to save him and he had to repay me by treating me to dinner? Well, that was totally worth it. Zaxby’s is delicious and I’m thrilled they’re finally jumping on the milkshake bandwagon. (I know, I know…bad Allison, bad!)

I also continually go into Sublime Doughnuts but I can’t quite quit that since a) delicious and b) I like the people there. They’re awesome. Except Kamal. And I’m only saying that because he’s probably reading this. And it’s all about supporting small business, right? Even those that aren’t that healthy for me.

I know, I know. I’m awful.

All right. I have a renewed sense of getting this accomplished. I’ve had to face some hard truths in the month of February. Even though I try, I feel like I eat very unhealthily. It’s so much easier to go out and get something after a long day rather than stay in and make something. So, March is going to be the month where I give up fast food/most restaurants.

That’s right. No more McDonalds, Wendy’s, Chick-fil-a, Zaxby’s (NOOOOO!!), Waffle House, Taco Bell, Moe’s, Papa John’s, Subway (even though it’s healthier, I don’t wanna), Panera and many, many, MANY more. I’m making exceptions on certain things…if I go out to eat with some friends at a sit down restaurant or my four year anniversary with my boyfriend this month and he takes me out, I won’t sweat those. Those are special occasions that definitely won’t involve fast food but might involve restaurants. Drinks are accepted at restaurants, not fast food chains.

This is going to be interesting since fast food is convenient and been around my whole life. I like fast food. I do. At certain places. But if I want to make a change in my life, I have to cut out the bad. This is the bad. The big, horrible, artery clogging bad.

I also know that I didn’t blog much in February. This will change. My February goal was kinda boring in terms of my goal and there were times when I did slip, but I considered February a success. My consumption of those beverages were cut way down which meant my sugar intake went way down and my teeth were much healthier.

As for books, I’m still trudging my way through The Gun Seller. It’s moved a bit slowly recently, but I’m trying my best to get through it and not start some other book (something I’m horribly guilty of). I tend to start other books when I’m halfway through one book and then never finish that other book. And I was making such good progress on Public Enemies. Sigh.

I have a couple of books in mind for March–Fast Food Nation (a true victim of my short attention span as I only ever got through half), They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War (in honor of Women’s History Month) and Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. If you think I should read one of these above the others, let me know. I’ll get through The Gun Seller first and let you know which one wins out.