A journey in words...

Welcome to my journey in words! A story about health, exercise, weight loss, food addiction, humor, size discrimination, sarcasm, social commentary and all the rest that’s rattling around inside my head...

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Sunday, October 4, 2009

Buffet in Zombieland

Every Sunday after church, my friends, family and I usually go to a Buffet for brunch at a local upscale supermarket. At the moment someone saying “Buffet” to me is the equivalent of saying “Boo” – it makes me very jittery.

Previously; my Buffet brunch would look something like this:

Eggs scrambled with peppers, onion and sausage with bacon or scrapple on the side and French toast covered in butter and syrup, followed by soft serve ice cream covered in chocolate, caramel and mini M&M’s. Calorie total: 1,829 – an entire days worth of calories in a single meal.

Or…

My ‘healthy’ option with spinach salad topped with green olives, garbanzo beans, red pepper, mushrooms, mini corn and sunflower seeds covered in buttermilk ranch dressing. With chicken fingers and mashed potatoes with gravy on the side. Followed up by soft serve ice cream covered in chocolate, caramel and mini M&M’s. Calorie total: 2,059 – more calories than I should eat in an entire day.

And I’m not going to lie and say that I would skip dinner on Sunday brunch days. No… later Sunday night I’d generally be ready to go for a normal evening meal. Looking at these totals now it’s no wonder to me that I’ve wound up where I have.

Obviously things needed to change. And they needed to change with my being surrounded by the painful temptation of fatty, calorie laden foods at my fingertips. Planning in advance seems to be a good weapon for me, so the night before I logged into my Plate and pre-selected what Sunday morning brunch was going to be.

Today I had two scrambled eggs with sausage, pepper and onion. A side of cottage cheese with cranberry chutney and granola and a plentiful serving of pineapple chunks, red grapes and cantaloupe. Calorie total: 885 – obviously this is far better than what my norm used to be, but it still seems awfully high for a meal that felt like it was primarily fruit. The indulgence that put it over the top was the granola. I love granola and its good for me – but let’s face it; it’s a food that consists of high fat / high calorie oats and nuts that are glued together with honey. No wonder it’s so tasty.

In the future I need to replace it with a smarter option, thankfully I’ve got a week before this particular obstacle hits again to figure it out.

As I sat lingering over my fruit and watching my skinny husband polish off one of his bacon sandwiches (after his chicken fingers, mashed potatoes and bacon mushroom omelet mind you) I have to confess to feeling a certain resentment. I know this boils down to simple math; but why he can eat like that and still stay thin? Why does he never have to even consider his weight in great detail? It’s something that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to really wrap my head around, or even have an answer for.

However the good news is that I survived brunch without overindulging.

Which brings me to Zombieland – the movie we saw afterward. Prior to seeing the film I had turned to my husband and said: “All this movie has to do – is deliver on what the preview promised. Lots of humor, and lots of zombie killing. And I’ll be a happy customer.”

Did it? Why yes, ladies and gentlemen – it surely did. It was a shotgun wielding, baseball bat swinging, piano dropping, car running over (twice) good time. I hate it when Hollywood preaches to me – but if they’d like to entertain me with a good old fashioned zombie smack down, I’m there. I haven’t laughed so hard at a film since Bruce Almighty (“I do da cha-cha like a sissy girl”).

Plus I couldn’t agree with Zombie survival rule #1 more: Cardio.

I can’t help but notice how much the actor Woody Harrelson reminds me of my brother Jack these days, especially in this particular movie. When I mentioned this to my friend Peter; he agreed that my brother does have a high Zombie-uprising survivability factor. He has power tools, and knows how to use them.

Apparently my perpetual video game playing Stepson would have a high Zombie-survivability rate as well due to good hand / eye coordination, weapons knowledge and a tendency to avoid other people. Who knew?

My own factor, alas, would be quite low – at least in my current state. Not only am I in bad shape but I’m way too social. All the more reason to keep on adhering to Rule #1 before the crazy mutant virus hits and begins turning the masses into shrieking hordes of shambling undead.

So… in summation for Sunday; Brunch is hazardous – but Zombieland rocks.

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