Delicious Duality

There is a crock pot cooking chicken and beans in my kitchen right now. My workplace meal (Is it lunch? Dinner? Who knows! Guessing is half the fun!) consists of salmon, whole grains, kale and other greens. Most days involve lots of veggies, lean protein, and various other nutritious and delicious stuff on my plate or packed for my shift, and when there's food in my cupboards and fridge it's generally pretty good for me. I give some credit to this not-so-terrible diet for getting over the cold I caught a couple weeks ago, and I think it's why I'm feeling unnecessarily energetic today.

Earlier, I walked my energetic butt to work like I usually do during the week, taking in the warm weather and the brief moment of quiet before manning the desk. The sun was shining, the mountains to either side of the valley glistened with much needed snow, and everything was pretty alright... but something sinister hung in the air. It got my attention as soon as it hit my nose, and it barged into my nostrils like an uninvited house guest.

It was the scent of the McDonald's across the street. It smelled like greasy mystery meat products, dubiously edible and definitely not good for you. As I made my way up the street, the smells from the other restaurants in town blew my way; burgers, pizza, things fried and grilled and liable to cause a heart attack in the long run wafted at me like a tidal wave of delicious, and my packed sandwich seemed a little less appealing.

I'm a big fan of health foods, sure, but I'm also kind of a junk food junkie.

I've talked about my love of pizza, and anyone who knows me knows my fixation on Taco Bell and cheeseburgers. Maybe it's because of being restricted from the crap as a kid, and maybe it's because years of science backs that the shit's addictive, but every now and then I get a pretty strong urge to get down on something processed and bad for me. I eat a balanced diet most of the week, conscious of what I'm stuffing my face with, but sometimes there's nothing I want more than an entire frozen pizza and some chicken nuggets washed down with a Mountain Dew. Some baked mahi-mahi with quinoa makes for a good dinner, but something from the drive-thru is both easy and tasty.

Luckily for me, though, I don't go overboard with the crap all the time. After gorging myself with copious amounts of junk I get lazy, and even though I don't mind being lazy every now and then it still makes me feel bad. There's so much more I could do other than loafing around to digest a bag of McDonald's cheeseburgers that when I end up in a state of McHibernation I feel guilty. After having a daily fast-food diet for a number of reasons for awhile, and being lucky enough now to not have to eat the crap all the time, learning the balance of eating food and eating "food" has been a slippery slope.

I'm stoked on the food slow cooking at home, and I'm pretty excited for the sandwich in the fridge here at work, but I'm also excited for the prospect of a bunch of fast food and junk at some point later this weekend.