Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Grocery Store Can Be A Confusing Place...

Since I've gotten so much positive feedback already... guess I'll keep going!  Thanks for reading everyone!

So, now that I realized changing everything about my life could actually work...the next step was to start to figure out this food thing.  For anyone who knows me, you probably know I don't really enjoy cooking and I know next to nothing about food.  Even though my mom is an amazing cook, I never really had an interest in it.  Living alone didn't really foster any desire to learn about cooking either.  So, I often found myself eating frozen meals, ordering pizza, or just making simple things like spaghetti or cooking already made burgers and stuff.

I was going to need a lot of help to figure out this whole cooking and food thing - I still do!!  And I have a feeling I will for awhile...but I'm getting ahead of myself.  So, my amazing new friend (Renee') met me on a Sunday afternoon and spent a lot of time helping me figure out what kind of things I could make for dinner.  I mean, she wrote down ingredients, drew me pictures of what kind of pan I would use to cook it in and directions on how to cook the meals.  Of course, this also meant I had to go back to the grocery store.

Kroger was becoming a maze of mystery to me.  I'll confess, I pretended to know what some of the ingredients she mentioned were so I wouldn't look like a complete moron.  I figured there would be signs and I would eventually find what I needed... Not as easy as it sounded.  Renee' kept talking about something called a garlic clove.  Couldn't find those, nor did I have any idea what I would do with one if I did find it.  That became a running joke between the two of us for the next few weeks until, finally, one day someone labeled them at Kroger!  Hey, miracles happen every once in awhile!

I did manage to find enough ingredients to start making a couple of the meals she had suggested.  I was pretty proud of myself when my pizza made from whole wheat pita bread with chicken, sauce and cheese on it was actually good!  And it filled me up.

I started to eat smaller meals, more often throughout the day.  Along with how much I ate, I changed what I put in my body as well.  Lots of lean protein, gave up my Oreos (I love sweets) and started avoiding all the free food at work.  I packed enough snacks to get me through the day but I knew eventually I was going to have to add more variety to my diet.  However, Renee' let me take the easy road for the first few weeks.  Then she started mentioning plain greek yogurt, cottage cheese and other things that I really didn't think I would ever buy ... The weird things she wanted me to find just kept piling up and on the days I went to the grocery store she would know to expect several messages.  The messages were either me being excited because I found something I hadn't previously been able to find or they were a a bunch of pictures to find out if I was buying the right things...

I'm convinced Renee' spent a majority of her days laughing at me but I was completely okay with it because I was learning how to laugh at myself.  There were several text messages that went back and forth about plates of cookies staring at me, donuts begging me to eat them, etc.  She would (and still does) just respond and make me laugh by coming up with a weird name for whatever food was annoying me that day, telling me how those foods are made (which would make me not want to eat them) or giving me an alternative I could try.  It's exactly what I needed to stay on track with what was becoming a new lifestyle.

By the way, if anyone ever wants to laugh hysterically, feel free to come to Kroger on a day when Renee' has me looking for something completely bizarre - it's pretty entertaining!!  Last week I spent a solid 20 minutes in the organic section... I'm still not sure I found what I was supposed to find...

Renee's willingness to help me, put up with all of my questions and be my friend were the biggest reasons I knew early on I would find success along this journey.


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