Today’s topic: Butter

Now that life has become some what unstable (oh remind me to write about stable vs. unstable soon) I’m finding myself outside of the home a lot. I’m not really doing too much, just trying to stay out of the house where negative images of being unemployed lead to sitting around the house feeling sorry for myself which then lead to lethargicness and finally defeat.

Since I’m only interested in winning this battle called Life, I take the extra time to spend it outdoors at different places. Sometimes being lethargic but in places like the library, Starbucks or the park with other people to watch, keeping my mind engaged and therefore on track. This means that I am finding myself out when it comes time to eat something.

Okay, here is a little background info first before I continue. On Tuesday, Godfather asked me which meal was my biggest during the day which is dinner, as this is the one meal I have with my husband. He has challenged me to switch the paradigm and focus on making lunch the biggest meal (I know, not a new concept) and have a smaller dinner. This way the body will burn off more of the calories consumed since it still has plenty of time in the day to do it’s little digestive dance instead of going to bed and having to work overtime while I catch some zzz’s.

*back to the story*

Being out of the house more means I am relying once again on finding food to eat in other places than my refrigerator. Not an easy task when I am counting calories and now adding lunch as the biggest portion of my food intake. I tend to go to grocery stores as there is more of a “natural” selection (fruits, yogurts, breads, organic stuff). I go past the deli of my local Fred Meyer (Kroger for all you Midwest / East Coast dwellers) and I eye a delicious looking premade turkey baguette. No cheese on that bad boy. Bread + turkey that’s it. The nice lady bags it up, I’m ready to nom nom nom my way into bliss and just as she rings me up she asks if I want mayo / mustard for the sandwich…

Here is the moment of truth. I declined because I want to make healthy choices. I declined because I don’t need the mayo to make it delicious and easier to eat. I declined because I just want to taste my food in the most natural state possible (not that smoked turkey meat is in it’s natural state but you know what I mean) and don’t want to slather it with condiments. I feel good about the food choices that I’ve made. I bought some extra fruit and my favorite Fage (blueberry) as a snack for later. I feel confident in my ability to stay in control even with all the distractions around me (bakery dept, chinese take out next to the deli, soda pop machine).

About three quarters of the way through the sandwich I realize there is something other than turkey and bread in this concoction. Upon further inspection I come to realize that they put butter on the inside of the baguette.

WHAT?!!?

All that conscious effort put forth so that I can make healthier choices just gone down the tube because for some reason Fred Meyer thinks people prefer to have butter on the inside of their sandwich (just in case mayo / mustard isn’t enough). Well Fuck me! (sorry for the “f” bomb, but it had to be written). Man it pissed me off. So much so I had to talk about it in therapy today. Yep, my therapy session was taken up by butter.

Chalk it up to another lesson learned: next time have them make my sandwich right then and there. I actually thought about purging. I thought making myself sick would make me feel better but today I’m just going to let it go. They didn’t purposefully put butter on it to sabotage my day (yes, I did think that for a fleeting second). That sandwich isn’t going to cause me to be way over in calories (in fact I’ll still be under – but yes I had that fleeting thought too). I’m not going to say “screw you” and go willy nilly on the rest of my food (that actually did NOT cross my mind).

I’m going to let it go.

I know I’ll obsess over it for the rest of the night. I know myself well enough to know obsessing is going to happen. I also know myself well enough that I can eat the fruit I bought, have a light dinner if I’m hungry later, drink my water and still have a successful day. I won’t be obsessing over the fact that I ate butter. Instead I’ll be obsessing over the following question:

Who puts butter on a turkey sandwich?

Apparently Fred Meyer does.