30-Day Fast Food Fast

I was remiss when I reported about my surgery and I did not include what the rest of my family was doing in support of this change in our lives. Tara and I talked prior to my surgery and agreed that she and the boys would also make some kind of change once I went under the knife. The best thing to attack was something that was commonplace and has become almost epidemic in our society: eating fast food/restaurant food.

So the Morgan family will be swearing off of fast food/restaurant food for 30 days starting on the 15th of August.

At one of my group therapy sessions prior to my surgery I was given a nutrition guide for popular fast food restaurants and it was not pretty. Take for example going to McDonald's (one of the Morgan's favorite haunts). You would think that eating one of those yummy chicken salads would be a plus, but the nutrition guide tells a whole different story. Though the Asian Salad with Grilled Chicken only has 300 calories (okay), it has 10 grams of fat (not too bad), but it has 890 mg of salt (very bad). Why the heavy salt content: because Micky D's soaks their chicken in salt so that it will keep longer. They actually have salads with higher salt content, but let's not bash the Golden Arches. The bottom line......the only thing we should be eating at McDonald's is the side salad (and bring your own dressing!). Oh yeah I forgot to mention if you throw on some Newman's Own Ranch you almost double your calorie count. My recommendation: stick to the dressing which are labeled "low-fat", they are all under 90 calories.

Now as I mentioned earlier, we can't bash McDonald's because no one make us eat there. We go for a variety of reasons. As a kid I remember getting to go to McDonald's only as a treat, so I guess as I got older I really want to TREAT myself, and boy have I ever. We go to McDonald's because our lives our hectic and we are constantly short on time. I can vividly see myself every Monday and Thursday for the three years of my doctoral program driving through the drive through of Jack in the Box across from campus and walking into class with a bag of food bigger than my book bag. My excuse, I was only eating fast food on nights I had school, but two night a weeks easily turned into three, four, or five. I can now report to you when my son Phoenix was born that I took three months off from work and pretty much all of those three months we ate nothing but fast food except for the meals my wonderful mother-in-law cooked when they were here. In fact one story surrounding prepared food purchased outside the home has become part of the Morgan lore. The day before my son was born I had gone to a Mexican Grocery and purchased some fresh chiccaronnes (for my fahter-in-law) and some fresh pig ears for myself. It was a saturday and we were house hunting so I took the pig ears and put them in the back of the car, but I never got around to eathing them. When we got home that evening I took them out and placed them in the fridge (gosh forbide that I throw away perfectly good pig ears). The next day the doctor told Tara to come to the hospital to check on the baby because she had not felt him move and so we packed up and headed to Round Rock from South Austin. As we were leaving it hit me that I had my pig ears in the fridge, so I nuked them and slapped them between two slices of bread and some mayo and we head to the hospital. Well over the course of the next 12 hours, my wife gave birth to our beautiful son, while I darted in and out of the facilite. Moral of the story. Eating a day-old, baked in the sun for 12 hours, pig ear sandwich can give your family fodder for years!

So back to fast food. I truly believe that our bodies and our minds once conditioned, become addicted to fast food. Circumstance gives us the excuse, our previous behavior gives another excuse, and then the sweet smell of a Double Quarter-Pounder with cheese (740 calories), 10 chicken nuggets (420 calories), super sized fries (570 calories), two hot mustard sauces (120 calories), two barbecue sauces (100) and a large diet drink (0 calories) bring it on home. There is no fighting the desire to do something so natural: EAT!

I listed those particular items, because that was my standard fare whenever I would go to the movies during lunch. A whopping 1950 calories...........but wait, that wasn't all. I would normally get a large bag of popcorn and also a bag of M&M's or a Snickers to top it all off. So a trip to the movies easily became a 2500 to 3000 calorie event. Somewhere along the way a switch got turned off, broken, or just plain malfunctioned and I turned from eating one or two items to having almost two meals at a setting. My portions were out of control both at home and while eating.

What I use to tell myself was that I was rewarding myself because I was working hard and needed to relax: and relax to me meant a good meal and a movie.

Well I can report that I went to the movies the other day and I rewarded myself not with food, but with a Vitamin Water which I didn't even finish, plus I enjoyed the movie (Pineapple Express).

Much Love and Respect,

Byron Lynn

P.S. An apple a day can keep the doctor away, or just stay away from day old pork!