Eating on the run

I don't need GPS to find fast food restaurants within a 20-mile radius of my house.  I know where all the McDonalds, Jack In The Boxes, Carl's Juniors, KFCs, Taco Bells, Del Tacos, and Burger Kings are because these places fed me weekly (sometimes daily) for many years.  Then there was Panda Express now and again as well as pizza I'd order once or twice a month.  El Pollo Loco wasn't neglected either.

The old me ate fast food several times a week, especially if work got very busy and I felt I had to work until all hours to catch up.  In these instances, dinner was usually fast food.  I can't honestly say how often I ate fast food every week because I didn't keep track, I just ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  I rarely cooked once my weight got out of control - which is one of the reasons my weight got out of control.  

I'm pretty sure these businesses I frequented were confused as to why their profits started dropping beginning at the end of 2012, which coincided with my new, healthier eating lifestyle.  When I started with Weight Watchers ("WW") at that time, I reduced the frequency of eating fast foods but I didn't completely give them up.  As long as I tracked my meals and stayed within my daily WW points allowed, it was okay.

When I started working closely with Flaminia ("Fla"), my trainer, in late November 2014, I reduced my consumption of fast food even more until finally I stopped eating this type of food altogether.  I can't remember the last time I ate at any of these places.  If I had to guess, I'd say that in the last ten months, I've only had El Pollo Loco and pizza a couple of times while abstaining from the other ones completely.  The only fast food place I frequent now is Subway for a 6-inch turkey sandwich on Italian bread (I don't like wheat bread) maybe twice a month, if that.  Just the sandwich, no chips, no cookies. 

That's pretty astounding considering fast food used to be part of my weekly diet for many years.  Even more amazing is I don't miss them at all.  Except for pizza.  I miss pizza.  I could literally eat pizza several times a week if I allowed myself, but every time I think of having some, I remember how awful it was to be obese, I think of how great I felt the last time I weighed myself (which was probably that morning), and suddenly I don't want pizza any more.  At least I don't crave it enough to actually eat some.

These days when I'm hungry, I have to eat NOW.  I can't wait hours to eat like I did before or I'll get sick.  If I wait too long, I start feeling very lethargic to the point where I start falling asleep even while driving, I start feeling off like I do when I'm about to get sick with some type of virus, and eventually I get a headache.  By this point, I'm ruined for the rest of the day even after I finally eat.  It seems that once I get to this point, I can't regain the energy I lost and I become so listless that all I can do is go to bed.  It's a really weird thing that happens to me now when I don't eat as soon as my body starts telling me it needs food. I don't think I ever experienced true hunger until I started my weight-loss journey, particularly after I started working with Fla - mostly because she won't let me eat anything!  Kidding!  It's due to the fact that I'm not consuming a ton of calories each day anymore and I've never been as active as I am nowadays so if I don't eat, my energy is completely depleted.  Who would've thunk it that I would ever go from being completely sedentary to being very active!!! 

 

At home, it's no big deal when I feel hunger because I always have food in the house.  When I'm running around town though and I need to eat, I find a market to get a pre-packaged salad (I use the dressing sparingly) and fruit or yogurt.  On those days when I'm not in the mood for a salad, I'll find a sandwich or a wrap at the market.  Rarely I'll go to Subway instead.  No matter what I get, I always check the calories first and foremost.  Whatever I consume for breakfast and lunch, I have to make sure to allow myself enough calories for dinner and at least one snack because I know I'll be hungry later. 

Fast food places usually offer salads, too, but the calories and sodium are too high for what you get.  And if you use their salad dressing, you just cancelled out any benefit of eating a salad versus a burger.  And no, that doesn't mean having a burger is the better choice.

The old me never really thought about food which I find ironic because you'd think someone that huge would be constantly thinking about food.  But I didn't.  There was no planning my meals, I didn't worry about what I'd eat on any particular day.  If I was out and about and I got hungry, I knew where all the fast food places were and eating on the run was no problem or I could just wait a few hours until I got home.  The new me, however, has to plan her meals ahead of time, especially when I'm running around town because, like I said, when I get hungry, I have to eat right away.

Depending on my schedule, I try to take food with me so I can pull over and eat in my car at any time.  Because I had to consider how long the food would sit in my car especially during very hot weather, I recently bought a small plastic cooler that I take with me.  It's perfect to pack snacks, a small lunch, or a protein shake that I prefer mixed with almond milk.  Sometimes I just don't know how hungry I'll be or how long it'll take me to get home so taking food with me works best.  I also keep Kind protein bars in my purse, but sometimes these are not enough to stave off hunger.

There are times when I get caught off guard or I just didn't think and I usually pay for it later.  An example is the first time I attended Fla's spin class on Friday afternoons.  The gym where she teaches this particular class is about 25 miles away from my home, which in Los Angeles is not considered far since all we do is drive, but I hadn't expected it to take me over 2 hours to get home that day (I've since found a faster route home) because it was still relatively early in the day when class was over.  The result was that by the time I was close to home, I was ready to pass out and I ended up having to find a market and eat something immediately.  Unfortunately, I waited so long to eat that by the time I got home, I could only climb into bed and I was dead to the world for the rest of the day.  Needless to say, now when I attend her Friday afternoon class, I always take food with me that I can eat while driving home, usually a sandwich or wrap because a salad is impossible to eat while driving. 

I eat in my car so often that I keep in it at all times a set of flatware (the real stuff, not plastic because there's the whole thing about cancerous chemicals released from plastics sitting in a hot car), paper towels, wet wipes, and a roll of small trash bags which is actually a roll of poop bags I keep for Mitzi.  I even keep a small pair of scissors for those pesky packages that refuse to be opened.  And now with my little cooler, I'm all set.  It's my home away from home.  You probably think my car is a dirty mess, but it's not.  It's the only uncluttered thing I own and I keep it pristine. 

The other day someone texted that she was driving around, was hungry, and wondered what the best fast food place was to get some food.  I told her what I do in these instances, but she said, "I can't, I'm driving."  I wasn't sure if she meant she was between appointments and didn't have time to find a market so I told her to get a salad from whatever fast food place she found but to forgo the dressing.  In the end she chose to get a burger and fries instead.  The calories and sodium she consumed for that meal were not worth it particularly when she keeps complaining that she's gaining weight and can't seem to lose any of it.

My doctors always told me the same thing:  everything in moderation is acceptable except for smoking.  Smoking is never okay.   I'm not a smoker, by the way.  So having fast food once in a while is fine, but if you're trying to lose weight, it's not worth it when there are better choices available.  And certainly, if you eat fast food regularly like the old me used to do, you're sabotaging yourself in the worst possible way.  The other factor is that whenever I ate fast food, I'd feel bloated and tired afterwards, like I had a blob of food in my stomach.  In contrast, when I eat a healthy meal, I feel energized and satisfied afterwards without feeling like a blob. 

There's a 2004 documentary called "Super Size Me."  It follows a man who decided to document what would happen to his body if he ate at McDonalds three meals a day for 30 days.  He not only gained weight, his body's statistics (blood work, etc.) changed for the worse and so did his general energy levels and overall well being.  Although not many people would ever eat every single meal at a fast food place, it goes to show you what happens to your body when you eat fast food on a regular basis.  It's not just fast food either, most restaurant food is not much better because even if their meals are not too bad on calories (although they usually are bad), the sodium levels are way too high, never mind the carbs and fat. 

So if you're trying to lose weight, you have to ask yourself if the convenience of fast food is worth it in the long run.  For me, I decided it was not worth it AT ALL, especially since most fast foods aren't that tasty anyway.  In fact, everything tastes the same when you have it so often.  The old me ate fast food because it was convenient, not because it tasted especially good.

With a little extra effort and some inconvenience, you can eat something healthier without blowing your daily calories and you'll feel better because you did.