Diet Schmiet

In the light that we are going to try to expand our family sometime soon, I figured it would be in my best interest to begin to try to eat healthy and get in great shape beforehand. Why not board the fat pregnant train at my fittest? I'm so smart.

So tonight I decided to measure out my ice cream. I don't have ice cream every single night. It's somewhere between 1 time a week and every single night. Much closer to the every single night side than I'm willing to admit to my blog and to myself. Have you ever measured out a serving size of ice cream? If you want to be so incredibly depressed, like Sarah Machlachan on the animal commercials depressed, please measure out a half cup (what the carton "suggests" I eat) of ice cream. Here is what it looks like:

If you're thinking the bowl looks empty well you would be right. If you're thinking the spoon looks like it's already had a few licks....well you'd also be right about that. Your attention to detail is astonishing dear reader. You see my issue is that I usually have at least 4-5 bites out of the carton before I serve my bowl. I have realized those bites are what a serving size is. So before I've even planted my rear on the couch to eat ice cream and watch the Real Housewives, I've already eaten an entire serving searching for the cookie dough bites. It is abandoned puppies depressing.

I guess this is pain for beauty. (I hate that saying. I can hear a Chinese nail lady saying it to me as she waxes my upper lip and I wince). You see my next pregnancy I just know I'm going to look like this:

One thing I've noticed is that when I'm trying to eat healthier, all I can think about is the unhealthy stuff. Even though I'm trying to tell myself that I need an apple, all my brain can think is whether I should get a McDonald's cone or a Wendy's frosty for the drive home.

We had some visitors recently and got the chance to go out to eat at 2 fun and fancy restaurants on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale. I always head into these places thinking, I will get roasted salmon and steamed broccoli, avoid the bread plate and guzzle ice water! Gosh I must be glowing, I continue to myself. 20 minutes later I'm the person elbows deep in the bread, slathering on (and asking for more) butter, and preparing to order the risotto because "I just barely ever eat risotto." I'm playing it real fast and loose with the "barely ever eat" phrase.

Side note on bread: One thing I have noticed in Florida restaurants is that the bread is very hard. Do older people like hard bread? There are a lot of 60 and ups down here. Are they all requesting stale bread? What's a girl got to do to get a soft buttered croissant or 5 before her meal?

Despite my shortcomings and love of risotto and bread, I figured a good spot to start all this healthiness would be a trip to Whole Foods. This is one of my favorite things to do, walk around these upscale type grocery stores and peruse all the food. Everyone there seems rich and fancy, and I too want to be rich and fancy, even if just from 3-3:30 on a random Monday. I imagine my name is Evelyn and my little one is Frederick (I have another on the way, to be named after an artist I admire), and we have just come from his music appreciation class. Brooks is half fluent in mandarin already, obviously, and I am head to toe in Gucci and look fabulous.

The reality: I'm covered in the squirt baby food that Brooks just exploded onto himself and me as I put him in the cart, and I'm pretty sure he has a poop, but the wipes and diaper are all the way back in the car and I don't realize it until we are in the store. I guess he will have to wait to be changed in the popped open trunk until we are done. I'm not positive I put deodorant on before I left so the odor we are giving off for a 10 foot perimeter around us is musky to say the least. Fancy it is.

They didn't have a Whole Foods in the town we were in before so I was excited to go. Big mistake. I guess the last time I went was in college when apparently it didn't matter that the 12 oz of blueberries were $8.99. What do they do to make this stuff organic, grow it in Gold? Now that I'm a sensible mom on a budget, I walked around aghast at the prices and thinking, we can deal with pesticides and hormones. We'll be fine! Brooks and I filled up on samples as our afternoon snack (sneers from the organic cheese lady as we made round 2 didn't help) and I picked a few things to buy so I wouldn't have to trudge out like white trash with nothing. It's not the Gap, I reminded myself, you can't walk into a grocery store and not buy anything.

The nice man bagging the groceries noticed my choice of (organic) blueberries dipped in yogurt (white chocolate), and remarked "these are so good." 'I know!' I told him, thinking about how Brooks and I would devour the whole thing on the ride home.

"Although," he said, "anything is good covered in chocolate, even a finger!" I guess he pinned me, the girl who would eat anything as long as it's covered in chocolate. I can't argue with facts.