7 Foods for 7 Days: Day 2

I cheated. It’s only day 2 and I already cheated.  I thought this experiment was going to be easy. I thought that because I’ve been on so many elimination and restricted diets in the past that limiting my food to 7 (10 things, if I’m being honest) would be easy for me.  It’s not.  I will come back to this, but I wanted to be honest from the beginning and set the tone for the rest of this post.

Breakfast

I had my usual banana and peanut butter, but this time I sprinkled dry roasted peanuts on the top for some extra protein.

Lunch

My sister (a/k/a Goddess of Pie and Cake) was visiting.  She, my mom, and I usually go out to lunch and shopping when she is in town.  I was worried about going out to eat and trying to make this diet work especially with someone that I call Goddess of Pie and Cake, so instead I invited them over to lunch.  Surprisingly, they accepted and were completely willing to try my limited offering lunch.  Instead of feeling restricted by the 7 things, I was inspired.  Most of the things on the list remind me of Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  So…I decided to prepare a pseudo Thanksgiving meal.

The store didn’t have a good selection of turkey breasts that I could roast.  I guess July isn’t really the season for this sort of thing, but they did have turkey cutlets.  I prepared these in a skillet with a splash of olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.  I made “baked” sweet potatoes in the microwave and served it with fresh spinach.  The turkey seemed a little dry to me, but my family ate it and we enjoyed just hanging out with each other, so no complaints for me.

Dinner

Since the Goddess of Pie and Cake was in town, my dad invited us out for dinner.  I explained my 7 things that I could eat and he said, “You can still order chicken tacos with rice and potatoes!”  This was his plan and there would be no changing that plan.  I decided that spending time with my family was more important than trying to follow the 7 things diet.  The husband sincerely told me that it would be ok, “just ask for forgiveness.”

I ended up ordering the tacos with no cheese and two sides of rice.  I contemplated only eating the chicken out of the tacos, but thought this was rather wasteful considering the point of this experiment is to cut out the excess, not to waste the excess.  But God really does work in mysterious ways.  There was a woman who was sitting behind us.  She was talking to herself rather loudly about how her mother raised her to feed and clothe herself and if we didn’t believe her either she or her mother would kick our ass.  She watched as our food was served and made pointed comments about how she always ate rice to make herself feel better and then just muttered the word tacos.  Talk about awkward!  What does one do in this situation? I wanted to buy her a plate of food, but didn’t.  Have you ever gone to school knowing that there was a test that you didn’t study for, knowing that you were going to fail?  This is how I felt.

The woman told the waitress that she only had $6 and couldn’t pay for everything she had ordered.  I only saw that she had coffee and later exchanged it for tea, but my sister said that she had a plate of food when we first arrived.  I felt better knowing that she had eaten.  I was just about to go to the front and offer to pay for her food when one of the ladies at the table next to us went over to her and told her not to worry that the check was taken care of.  Thank you, God, for moving someone to help this woman.  After knowing that the woman had been helped and that she had eaten, I could finally eat my own tacos.  And, yes, I ate the corn tortillas and the lettuce and tomato without hesitation. 

Unfortunately, this woman needed more than food.  She told the good Samaritan that she had money, that she just forgot her purse.  Then she asked if the woman would ask the waitress to bring her 4 or 5 more tortillas.  The good Samaritan’s husband shook his head and they left.  I don’t know if more tortillas were brought to the table or not.  The skeptic in me can’t help but wonder if this same scenario would be repeated throughout the night only because at one point in the woman’s muddled conversation to herself, she asked “Why should I only eat in soup kitchens?”

I could discuss the necessity of mental health care, I could discuss the struggle that occurs within me to answer this question, I could discuss that the answer is always money, or I can simply end this post by saying that limiting my food intake to 7 (10) things is self-imposed and not really a struggle at all.