Cop Out...

Yep that's right, I said COP OUT! Did we eat the crock pot extravaganza the next day? NOPE! Me and Roomie had had enough of the kitchen and had a jonesing for a burger. Where'd we go? THE HAT! If you live in So. Cal. or Vegas, you know all about the delish-ness that is The Hat. They are famous for their pastrami sandwiches and mile-high chili fries (no joke it's crazy what these guys do to a chili fry).

So I probably should have mentioned earlier that my Roomie is a total veggie freak. While eating meat (usually chicken) happens now and again, the food of preference is veggie related. If you read my first post you well know that veggies are my sworn enemy and I'd rather go to the dentist AND the gyno at the same time than eat them...especially squash. UGHHHHHHH!!!! So as we have roomed together for the last month and a half, it has been a practice in patience and experimentation for us both to dine in the same house and not make multiple meals. Trying to save money, we try to make one dinner to share and have leftovers for lunches and what not. We've had more hits than misses, which is good and both of us have opened our minds to things we probably would not have tried prior to meeting. Thus, my voyage into eating more like a grown up. I still like what I like, but am trying to find ways to do it more healthfully as well as incorporate more fruits and (gulp!) veggies in my diet. Roomie swears it will help my digestion and such, so we will see. (Note I'm opting out of writing a blog about my bathroom habits to see if this notion turns out to be true. *LOL*) So for weeks, I've been on a pilgrimage to try and eat some sort of veggie and fruit with at least my dinner if not more. I've done quite well so far although as I pointed out in earlier writings, I'm a purist, I like things a certain way and rarely waver from that mode. Salad, the dreaded salad, smells like ass (and not in a good way) in my book and my friends think it's hilarious. I truly believe that lettuce is the devil. I've sent many a bag of Taco Hell back before even opening it because I can smell the gooey nasty cheese encrusted iceberg lettuce percolating in my warm tacos. GROSS! I know so many people that LOVE salad...they try in vain to extol the virtues of this health food on me...but the message is lost the moment the "green" smell hits my nostrils. Not to mention the smells of goopy dressing dripping from the wilted leaves...(excuse me while I gag a bit at the image). So no salads for this chick. Oddly enough though, I discovered that I can not only handle but ALMOST enjoy (now) baby spinach (no stems) with sliced granny smith apples, cashews, and dried cranberries. Weird right? So that has been my "veggie" for dinner in most cases. Roomie has a rule about having some sort of fruit on the table to follow dinner, a habit that wasn't as hard to follow as I thought it would be. I like bananas and granny smith apples so those are my fruits on the table. Now and again when strawberries are on sale I'll eat those too. BABY STEPS PEOPLE! I'm a work in progress!

Now that you know about the veggie wars that go on in my house and how I've been trying to adjust, I can tell you that I have been doing well believe it or not. I am still working on things liked cooked veggies outside of corn and potatoes (Yes I know, keep the starch argument to yourself, I don't care, I love them.). Point is, I'm getting there. After weeks of really pushing fruits and the dinner salad I found I was hungry more often. Also I read somewhere that my waking constantly at night and heartburn may be curbed if I ate a light snack (containing protein) later in the evening. After moving in I found that we ate dinner much earlier than I was used to when I was a grazer prior. Which might explain why I had sleep and heartburn issues more regularly after moving in. So I tried it, ate a few Triscuits and cheese about an hour or two before bed and what do you know? IT WORKED! I tend to sleep much better through the night with no tummy or heartburn issues. So with all these changes I'm finding that I'm eating smaller meals with more content, but a little more often and things seem to coming along well.

With all this better eating, I didn't even think about what going to The Hat might do to my better balanced system. I was seriously PMSing and wanted my junk food in a bad way. Mind you I don't drink Pop all that often and much prefer unsweetened iced tea. So there we are at The Hat, and we both ordered (which I've never done) double cheeseburgers (mine is plain of course), fries for Roomie and onion rings (extra crispy) for me. It's funny.. I don't like onions, but love extra crispy onion rings that are thinly sliced (that way the onion doesn't slide out). This plan sounded good in the moment...and for once I decided to forgo the iced tea and got excited over strawberry Fanta. You see where this is going I'm sure. I would say about halfway through the artery clogging, deep fried goodness we were feasting on I felt it. You know the feeling...the pressure in that spot between your chest and tummy, then the burn. Did I stop? Hell no! I put down that whole burger, half my rings (the "small" comes in a giant paper bag), all my deliciously strawberry-ness Fanta and died a sweet fast food death. It was so good...hit the spot completely in more ways than one. We both crawled to the truck and drove the short distance home. Bloated and uncomfortable does not quite cover it. We prayed for relief. Roomie decided to go fuss around the yard in an effort to work some of the bloat away (Yeah right...there was farting going on out there, you can't fool me!). I lay on the couch and held my gut hoping for relief. Then we thought we would flush away the badness with drinking copious amounts of water...all that did was waterlog our bloat further. Needless to say neither of us slept well that night...and as I drifted off to a uncomfortable sleep I could hear Roomie in the hallway telling me "you know it takes like 3 days for red meat to work its way through your digestive system". Thanks for the warning (NOW) Captain Obvious!