Determined To Succeed

Day sixty.

How cool and exciting is that?! For sixty days I have been sober and appreciating life and am facing, for the first time, not feeling fear about facing the past while looking forward to the future. It is awesome to finally (FINALLY) be proud of myself and to admit to people that I was ashamed of things in my past, things which led me down dark and twisty paths until I hit my rock bottom. But I am, with each and every day, striving always to be changed, better and a different man – one that my mom, JoAnn Larson, would be proud to say is her son. I love you, Ma! Very much.

I think she also might be proud that I stayed in the house last night to eat. Do you know how freaking tempting it is to eat out? Even when you have a fridge full of food it is so tempting to say “screw it, I’m gonna just go buy this or that or the other.” Never mind that, for just a little time and effort, you can eat not just well but very well and have some kick-ass dishes.

Take for example breakfast. Those of you who have followed me over almost the past year (and thank you so much for doing that) know I love McDonald’s breakfast sausage. Besides their french fries it is the reason to eat there. In my former 400-pound life I used to down a couple of Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwiches, two of their addictive and crack-like hash browns while washing it down with a large Coke (yes, one that was ice-cold). That was my breakfast! Yes, I bought that every single day. I can’t tell you how much money I spent over the years doing that, either. A small fortune, I’m sure. Now, over these past few years I’ve all but stopped going to McDonald’s except for the every blue moon “O.K., it’s the only thing around and I’m hungry” and their new fruit smoothies (particularly the strawberry banana). But I cooked breakfast at home today. I got out a frying pan, two eggs, one turkey sausage pattie and a small amount of shredded mozzarella cheese, all of which I had in the fridge having already purchased these things at the store. In no time at all I had me my very own sausage, egg and cheese sandwich on wheat toast and it was yummy…

…and better prepared…

…and waaaaaaaaay cheaper.

Same thing goes for lunch. Yesterday, I had leftover meatloaf, mashed potatoes (real ones made from the mashing of whole potatoes) and greens. Was it easier to say “screw it, I don’t want this” and go out to get something? Yeppers, but I didn’t and the leftovers were good. Damn good, even. And again waaaaay cheaper.

The point I’m trying to make is that we need to make adjustments to our lifestyles if we are ever going to truly attack weight loss and fight the “battle of the bulge.” No matter whether food is your drug of choice or not we all have to stop acting out, especially if food is how you “self-medicate.” I know the temptations of eating out are great. Food prepared in flashy ways with great marketing campaigns is great, but nothing compared to the food you’ve had all along at home in your own fridge. Food, that with just a little time and effort, becomes the best banquet of all.

I know that changing a life ain’t easy. Believe me, I know several ways and times over, but it can be done as long as you have the heart to face whatever is truly making you “act out” in life.  When you do that, when you finally turn around and face whatever it is you’re running from, you will finally be free of it and the shame that makes you numb yourself. There is a wonderful world out there and it should be enjoyed. So go, enjoy it and appreciate it but always remember the best foods are the foods made at home with hard work, time and your own two hands.

Day fifty-two.

Ugh. I have a cold and I feel like crap today. It started with the always-suspicious scratchy, drippy throat yesterday. As soon as I felt it start I knew I was in for it, but I fought the brave fight. Even at my meeting last night I nursed a 32-ounce (!) hot tea from McDonald’s (one of the only things I will but from them AND it was on the way) complete with honey. I tried but, alas, the common cold won and today my throat is swollen and hurts like a mutha’, I have a slight fever and I am run down. As I said before…ugh!

I know I need to conserve strength today and rest. The problem inherent with that (and feeling like crap) is that you don’t feel like working out AND you need your strength to fight the bug so you have to eat. I don’t know about you but even looking at food sometimes adds inches to my thighs and belly, let alone actually having it. Double ugh! But I know that’s what I need and I will do it so I can get better faster (damned air-conditioning inside/humid-hot weather outside).

Despite feeling crappy, last night’s meeting was awesome. So many of us were sharing stories about ourselves and how we turned to food as comfort to help deal with shame, pain and events in our lives we all wanted to push down and forget. It was amazing learning that much more about the guys in the group, and oh how it helps knowing I’m not the only one who used/uses food to do that. Wow. So cool (yet so sad), indeed.

Food is always a temptation, isn’t it? No matter where you live you can always find some semblance of your “comfort foods” from childhood, your favorite ice-cream at the store, egg rolls, sandwich, loaded french fries, etc. Man, I wish I could go back in time and invest in then up-and-coming companies like Coke, Hostess and the like. This way, as I got to 400 pounds I’d me helping to make myself rich in the process (just a little fat humor there). I also wish I knew why food almost always is used to dull pain. I know the scientific reasons – that it triggers the release of dopamine (sp) and seratonin (sp) in the brain (pleasure chemicals) that make us feel euphoric. But I am talking about the actual WHY we search for pleasure in food.

Maybe it is because it is a constant. Maybe we always turn to food because it is always there, no matter where we live in the world. While so many of us feel fears of abandonment in life we know food won’t do that. It IS always there, readily available and standing by. (Shaking head) I see now how it works. See, this is how my brain functions when it’s got a fever and I’m feeling crappy. I just start thinking about the great mysteries of life and how to solve them. That’s why when we (O.K., I) move to a new area we both seek out and are bombarded with ads for easy foods like pizza. It is recognizable and, despite its many variations, pizza, after all, is pizza.

My friends, you’re gonna have to forgive me today for the blog being short and incoherent but, after a hard day of waking up with a cold, I need to go back to resting. But I will be going back to thinking about the why’s I ate/eat the way I did/do. Sure we need food but we don’t NEED food as much as we think we do. Sometimes just knowing we are not alone and can talk to people is more than enough to satisfy our real craving – for human company and understanding.

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Day forty-four.

As you could tell from my posting yesterday I do my best to make “living amends,” meaning even if the people I have wronged in life don’t know, care, support or accept my attempts to put things right I know I am still walking and living the path to being a better, healthier and stronger man free of who and what I was before.But yesterday was a pretty rough. It’s been forty-four days and in each and every one of those days I have done my best to do at least one thing to reclaim my humanity and be my mother’s son again. Yesterday, though, I just fell apart and questioned everything, especially whether or not I was even worth it all.

No matter what your drug of choice might be, if you’re an addict you hurt people in the most acute of ways and that pain can last a lifetime. In exploring my past and trying to reconnect exactly what made me an addict and turn to my drugs, including food, I realize how ashamed I was of me even way back when I was a child. I was ashamed about how I grew up in a one-room, roach-infested apartment in an old hotel, I was ashamed I never had any money, I was ashamed I couldn’t afford new clothes and had to wear pants and shirts with holes in them and I was ashamed I didn’t have the seemingly normal life my friends seemed to have. I was so ashamed I lied about it all and that was the beginning of two things – my creation of alternate realities to suit a false image to others and my turning to food as comfort to numb and take away the pain.

Like I said last night was a rough one and sitting there thinking about it all I started to cry. I started to cry and really question whether or not I was really worthy of the chances I’ve been given in life. I sat there and wondered out loud whether or not I was doing anybody any good and whether or not the demons, dark forces and black holes that had surrounded me in life were right all along – that I was nothing, a bad person not worthy of redemption.

That’s when the oldest demon of all came for a visit. The demon of food. He came to me and put his arm around me. “There, there,” he said, “it’s going to be alright. Why don’t you just hop in the car and grab some Chinese food and we can talk about it.”

“Fuck,” I thought to myself, “Chinese does sound so good.” I thought about all the other foods that would make me feel better – cheeseburgers, Taco Bell, anything…anything to just numb the pain of what I was feeling. Anything to run away from it.

But I couldn’t run any longer. Forty-four days ago I said I wasn’t going to run and hide anymore from life, the pain or the truth and I wasn’t going to start last night. Forty-four days is how long I’ve been sober, and telling the truth about things and being honest with myself and I’m not going to start breaking that especially with food. Fuck that, and fuck all the bad thoughts I had last night. We do need to face our fears, doubts, anxieties, anger, sadness and pain but we can do that without compounding those feelings with even more shame – the shame of acting out in some way that does take us express to the people we were before.

I did, however, compromise and had some strawberry ice-cream. It was creamy, smooth and delicious. After that I was done. I was done with the cravings. Every day, every single day, I work the twelve steps in my mind and try to be a better person, whether others think it or not. But I am so lucky I am surrounded by people who do think I am worth it even I don’t necessarily believe it myself some days. That includes the spirit of my mom, JoAnn Larson, who was wise in so many wonderful ways that her brilliance astounds me to this day and always will.

I will never go back to being 400 pounds. That man was unhappy, and profoundly so, for so many reasons. However, I do have work to do. I am down a few ounces today and that is a start. Hell, I might have even cried out those ounces but they are gone and I am down slightly. I have always told you out there you are not alone and I meant it. There are times I feel beaten down, unworthy, tired, angry and defeated and I want to eat, too. I do. I sooooo do. I want to run away and drown out the noise and numb the pain with food that tastes so good. That is being human. But there is one thing on our side that keeps us sane – reason. We have the ability to reason and figure out/discover the WHYs and HOWs of things so we don’t keep doing the same shit over and over to detrimental effect to others but, most of all, to ourselves.

That is how we survive. That is how we move forward. That is how we will win.

I woke up today feeling much better. The sun was shining (still is) and the crisp morning air felt good. Most of all, I had reached day forty-four and I am lucky and blessed for that because so many people can’t and don’t even reach day one. Yes, I woke up this morning feeling better and today is dedicated to surviving, to moving forward and most of all, to winning so I can smile and reach day forty-five. Even after such a dark night of the soul I know I am worth it. We are all worth it.

PS: I had a low-fat blueberry muffin and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. Funny how feeling good keeps you from going to the drive-thru at McDonald’s.

Day twenty-five.

I am sitting here honestly not knowing what to write today. The past few days have been such a roller-coaster of emotions, feelings, thoughts and events that I just don’t have the quiet necessary to write something cohesive. Please forgive me for that. I know there are people out there who read me everyday (and thank you so much for that), but sometimes it’s hard to get the brain firing on all cylinders. I will do my best, though, and write several mini blog posts in this bigger blog post.

A mini-blog about weight:

I am down to 234.4 today, so down another half-pound or so and back into the battle of the final ten. This is after a period where I binged a bit too much and gained back about eight pounds or so. Addictions do that to you, ya know. They take your strength, time, money, sanity and even your soul. And for what? Distractions that are fleeting at best? Then you literally feed them with comfort foods that leave you with nothing but pounds.  Well, thanks to amazing support and some good therapy I am getting a handle on both and am controlling my eating again. Woo-fucking-hoo!!! By year’s end, maybe sooner, I will see that 225 on my scale again. You’ll see. I will get there.

A mini-blog about time:

Labor Day Weekend is upon us and I’m sitting here lamenting how much time I’ve pissed away in my life. We always say things like “I can’t believe it’s already ________,” and insert your choice of holiday, day or date here, but this time I cannot blame work or a hectic life on my loss of time. I am the only one responsible for wasting so much time in my life to my addictions, and now the year is three-quarters over and I have little to show for it. I wanted to be rich and well-into writing a book by now. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I wanted to be planning weight loss speaking engagements. Strike two. I should have been doing so much more than I have actually done but gave in to the addict in me. Sigh. Well, I am going to be making the utmost of the remaining three months of this year. I have a lot of time to make up for and I will be. You’ll see. I will get there.

A mini-blog about food:

This morning was a true test of my Bill Power. I had such a taste for a breakfast burrito from McDonald’s. I don’t know why that is but I did. Maybe I just needed protein to replenish myself, or maybe the thought of something hot and eggy/cheesy sounded good. But I held back and decided instead to just get my reduced-fat blueberry muffin and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. Man, since that binge of not-so-long ago I have really tried to ask myself “do I really need/want ______,” and fill in the blank with your comfort food of choice, with the answer almost always being “no, I don’t.” So I’ve passed up cravings for strawberry ice-cream, McDonald’s and even that delicious peach shake from Chick-Fil-A in favor of healthier drinks and meals. And lo and behold it’s working again. Gee, go figure…

A final mini-blog about the Labor Day holiday weekend:

Usually I take Saturdays and Sundays off to give my wee brain a rest from writing (and to give you a rest from my rantings about, well, stuff). But this weekend I am going to be taking advantage of the holiday and taking tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday off. It will be good to get out and take in some of the summer air (even though a hurricane is supposed to be hitting the Jersey coast sometime tomorrow), and things I have all but ignored over the summer so far. What will I do? I have no idea but that is a beautiful thing. All I know is I will be appreciating life, communing with my mom’s spirit a bit and being present. These days that’s all that matters.

And there you have it, a scatter-brained, roller coaster blog to start the holiday weekend off right (I guess). In going to therapy and going to twelve-step meetings I have done my absolute best to adhere to the steps themselves. They say in meetings to work the steps because they work if you work them, and I am doing that. I am trying so that a healing time can happen. I know I have done wrong in my life but it is time to heal and continue making myself a better man. That means taking care of myself, setting boundaries, keeping tabs on my weight, not wasting anymore time, thinking about comfort foods and being present to enjoy long, lazy weekends. I hope you guys can all do the same. Life is truly a precious gift and is way too short to waste it on the negative. Be well, my friends, and avoid eating too much comfort food like hot dogs and burgers (especially if you do get down). You’ll feel better soon. You’ll see. We will all get there soon.

Day Twelve.

Odds are, at some point in your life, you will visit a cemetery or two. Personally, I find them and their history fascinating, especially when their history, in part, is told by the inscription on its tombstones and grave markers. Some of them are funny, and some tell a story, but all of them list a birth year and a death year. I don’t know one that doesn’t. In the past few weeks I’ve come to realize just how much of an addict I’ve been, one created when I was a kid and finally admitted to now.

There are so many similarities between the different types of addictions that it usually becomes just a matter of which drug you choose. You’ve heard me say over these past couple of weeks how I merely went from one drug to another, but that lesson got hammered home to me yesterday when I was cooking.

There was a huge time in my life when food was my drug of choice. Food was my escape. It was my security. It was my warmth. It was always there. Dammit, I wish I could have seen how much I was “using” back then. Because I grew up with no money and only a hotplate on which to cook (we owned two pans – one to boil water in and one frying pan) my mom and I ate out almost always. Most kids would kill to eat out as much as we did and have the foods I had – Chinese food, pizza, meatball sandwiches, McDonald’s – but they didn’t realize how good they had it because the meals they had were created in their own homes by people who spent time, energy and love making whatever was served, not food picked up on the streets. The meals my friends had were honest meals, and while in no way, shape or form am I saying my mom failed (she did an absolutely amazing job doing the best she could to feed us) what kid – what adult – doesn’t like a good home-cooked meal not just because of the food but what it means…that its earned from the journey and not acquired.

Yesterday I got a wild hair to actually cook something. I was sitting around thinking to myself how much I wanted to get my hands dirty and create something from scratch. I dug up and old recipe I’d been saving for a seven-cheese mac and cheese and headed off to the store. It was exciting to be in the store looking around for the ingredients, eventually enlisting the help of one of the store’s workers to help me find the cheeses I needed. He was awesome and the more and more I put the ingredients in my cart the more and more I knew this was going to be good. I could feel it in my bones.

When I cook there’s always a mess. I’m not the neatest cook there is. I don’t throw bits of this and scores of flower or that everywhere but food that’s created has a certain mess and I embrace that mess. It’s part of the process and part of the journey. And I have to say I enjoyed destroying my kitchen. I loved seeing it dirty. I loved even grating off part of my hand as I grated some of the cheeses. Yes, you bet your ass it hurt but I was creating something, something that was coming from hard work. And just as an aside, it’s bloody strenuous to stir and huge ever-thickening mixture when more and more cheeses are involved. Whew!

When I was done adding and mixing and baking and cleaning this incredible mac and cheese came out. It was bubbling from being so hot and it looked and smelled incredible. And there was sooooooo much of it (ok, note to self – half the recipe next time) I will be eating it for days. When it cooled and I actually had some I was triple-pleased. One it was delicious (as I was hoping it would be since I smelled like butter and cheese the whole night). Two, because I actually cut pieces and exercised portion control. I may have had a half-helping too much (I did mention it was delicious) but I put the rest away and was content to do so. Three, because it was an honest meal, once created by me and not merely bought by me. Created from my own two hands from hard work.

When we look at our lives and realize that what we’re addicted to isn’t what we’re really searching for the doors open and we can truly begin work on the hard things, including and most of all changing how we think and act so we can see that it’s always been about finding that which we need within ourselves. And yes, many messes are made in the kitchen of the mind when that happens, but only because you always have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. If in this weight loss journey food is your drug I can honestly say you don’t need it to feel better. It is delicious and wonderful but it is not something that will make you feel better. That can and will come from inside you once you get down to what the issues really are in your life, and I would spare you the pain of becoming an addict if I can. And I say that because, at 39-years-old, I am finally ready to begin the next, honest and healthier phase of my life so I can finally carve the death date of my addictions on that particular tombstone.

It’s never too late start, so don’t be afraid. Creating the best meal you can be will always begin with the true recipe and the willingness to get dirty in the process. Have a great weekend.

Day eight.

Happy Monday to you all. I don’t know quite how to begin today’s blog, so I will start at the beginning. I am down to 232.6. It’s amazing what finally telling the truth can and will do to and for a person. No matter what kind of situation you have in life, you have to be truthful to yourself and others because lies affect so many aspects you’re not even aware of. I am now well-within finally losing that final ten pounds because, for the first time in my adult life, I am telling the truth to people. I am not “hungry” anymore and eating this and drinking that (things like ice-cream or drinking Cokes) trying to keep it all down.

That is what I used to do. I used to eat more to feel better. It was an old pattern and one I thought I had kicked. I did that when I was the 400-pound me. No matter what I was going through every restaurant and take-out place was open, so I ate. I finally got hold of the weight problem and lost the weight, but I was wrong in thinking I had lost that pattern, too. I may not have been driving through the McDonald’s drive-thru every day to get my breakfast sandwiches, hash browns and Coke but I did binge. How was it different than when I was 400? What I did was far more subversive: I ate throughout the day. I ate “snacks” to fool myself into thinking I could eat AND keep all this down.

Yes, I was lying to myself yet again. I am human and I was wrong.

I am not lying anymore, especially to myself, and yesterday I went to my first meeting to get help. In many ways it was exactly what I expected but in some, not what I expected at all. It was good, though, talking about things openly and honestly and as I sat there I thought about the horrible things I’ve done and the lies I’ve told. But I also did think about my weight and how that was the one thing I did right. Admitting you have a problem is never an easy thing, whether it’s to friends or a group of strangers but it does mean you are facing your demons and willing to work on being a better person, which for me means being my mother’s son again.

That is why I feel lighter these days. Yes, the final extra weight I gained is finally coming off but my spirit is lighter, also. That is the healing power of truth. We tell so many lies in our worlds that it becomes exhausting to keep all that going and keep it all straight. Trying to remember who you told what to is draining because it feeds the demon that says you won’t be liked unless you lie. That is also the demon that allows you food as a recourse to trick you into believing it will all be O.K.

I have since learned that the only way to finally defeat that demon is to grapple with the actual problem, me. When that happened my demon had no more power. That can be true in weight loss as well as in all aspects of life. When you finally (FINALLY!) deal with what is really going on inside you, realizing your faults, weaknesses, idiotic actions and lies are leading to pain, you can finally try to really begin fixing what is truly broken…yourself.

That is what it means to “bottom out.” And friends, that is what happened to me. I bottomed out as a person and as a soul. I was bankrupt and had no value. I still don’t, but at least I can say two thing to you honestly today: One, I did lose this weight without surgery. I did it with hard work, perseverance and will. I never had surgery, and while that is good for some I chose not to have it. It was my choice and right for me and, in the end, the right choice. Two, I am facing my demons and finally dealing with the shit in my life that truly was the cause of me being the liar I was, and finally trying to do what is right.

When I finish this writing I am heading to the gym to workout again. I am getting back to the core of all my truths, not least of which is maintaining weight loss. I am human. I have always said I am human, but I kid you not when I say I do want to get better, heal and live the rest of my life as the best man, and son, I can possibly be. That is how I guess I want to start today, with that affirmation.

Today the sun that’s out there now is expected to give way to rain, but I won’t. Not anymore. These may be hard days filled with facing up to so much in my life, but I will do my best. That is truly all we can do. Except now I really am doing my best in all aspects of my life not just one, trying to be the man I always wanted to be.

Day two.

It seems silly to jump back into writing my usual upbeat, movie-themed weight loss blog, particularly in light of the events of the past few days. Who am I, a flawed and damaged human being, to tell ANYONE how to do anything? That’s a question I have asked myself repeatedly, believe it or not, since I began writing this thing. But the answer to that lies in the simple fact I did lose weight and did it by changing my lifestyle and eating habits.

When I started this whole process I was over 400 pounds. I was a massive man. I know that I must have fodder for many a McDonald’s drive-thru worker when they saw this elephant driving up to them, handing over some cash and taking a bag full of food stuff that were going to add more fat and cholesterol and salt and sugars to my body. And for what?! Just so I could have a convenient and hot “breakfast” on my way to work? That’s crap. I would bet you anything fast food employees talk about the people they see and have bets to see who serves the fattest person that day or that week.And am I saying that to be harsh? No. It is the truth. The cold, hard truth, and the same truth I had to face when I began trying to lose weight.

When I saw that photo of me in the shark tunnel at the aquarium I really saw the result of what I had been doing to myself over years and years of fucked up, messed up emotions, situations and thoughts. I used food. I used it to feel better, take away pain, ease guilt, celebrate happinesses (is that even a word), join with friends…it was everywhere and I took it. Which meant that when I saw that photo I knew I had to do something about it. Me, and me alone.

Here’s another reason I feel silly, folks. Thanks to the catastrophic failures I mentioned yesterday I am finally able to be honest and say how selfish I really am as a human being. I also know, in light of that, how weird it is to say “I” and “me” as much as I have in today’s writing. The only thing I can say is that in this weight loss, the only thing I seem to have done right over these past few years, I did it. Me, and me alone shed this weight. Nobody held a gun to my head to make me eat that God-forsaken “food” I loaded up on and no one was going to be able to help me on my journey. I had to do it alone.

This brings me back to my opening paragraph. How silly I feel trying to write something upbeat when I don’t feel upbeat. But I have to be true to myself and mention a movie quote (and no, it’s not from “Star Wars”). This one is from the 1987 Brian DePalma film “The Untouchables.” In that film, DeNiro, as Al Capone, walks around all his lieutenants holding a baseball bat talking about the virtues of being part of a team. You know the scene I mean. Well, before the infamous “batter-up” he does to one of them for getting raided he talks about standing alone at the plate and how that is the time for individual achievement.

In weight loss it is you, all you, standing alone at the plate. That’s why it’s scary. The cheeseburgers, fried chicken pieces, pops, candies, McMuffin sandwiches and doughnuts are the fast balls, curve balls and sliders you have to try to navigate, out-guess and out-think so you don’t strike out and fail that time up to bat. And no one is standing up there with you. I cannot talk about that enough. It’s a scary fucking time in weight loss especially because no one is doing it for you. Oh sure, they can and might encourage, suggest and support but at the end of the day it’s only you who can make your feet move in exercise and make your hands NOT pick up one of those curve ball cheeseburgers.

Bill Murray the actor once said in a famous award acceptance speech that he didn’t know who to thank for the honor because so many people were trying to take credit that he didn’t know where to begin. Funny how successes in someone’s life are like that award, with people always trying to take credit for someone else’s hard work, blood, sweat and tears. I can assure you, however no one did this for me. I did it. Me. Bill Larson, who might be weak in other areas of his life but wasn’t in this one.

That why I always try to support you guys in your weight loss. It can be a very lonely road to travel when you do decide to, and I know from experience that it helps sometimes having people there who have gone through all this before to really offer encouragement, wisdom or a good kick in the pants. But the best thing I can offer you is that understanding of how alone you can feel. I am actually (and ironically) on another losing trend again. I am within losing that final ten pounds. This time, though, it’s because I am finally being a man and owning up to things I’ve done in my life, apologizing for them and trying to do some right, and by doing that I am not picking up food as a way to suppress it all.

That is why, despite the rest of the strike outs I’ve been having in my life, in my weight loss and my ongoing weight loss journey, I am hitting a home run. Good luck to you all today as you step up to the plate. You can do it. I know you can.

Hello, my friends. Yes, there was a purposeful reason for me being so late today with today’s entry – I was waiting until after seeing the dentist.

Yeah, I waited until after my appointment to write because I was all in a tizzy. You guys know what I’ve been through already with my teeth and I had to go back today because my mouth was feeling particularly sensitive to things like heat and cold and chewing…things it should not be sensitive to. Anywho, I went and it turns out everything is fine, and they put some desensitizing goo on my tooth and gums which tastes like a cross between a strawberry gum and Elmer’s Glue. Ick, but O.K. I’d rather have gone in for them to tell me nothing’s wrong rather than put it off only to have the Grand Canyon of problems happen.  The only drawback to the Elmer’s Goo (as I now call it) was that I had to wait half-an-hour to eat or drink anything and I sooooooo needed coffee this morning. And while I was at it I was a bit peckish so I did something different today…I went to Subway.

I haven’t been to a Subway in at least a few of years. I have nothing at all against them, it’s just that I think I overdosed on sandwiches from there when I was beginning to try to lose weight and eat better. The Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Sandwich was my best friend for a while and at only 380 calories (only 40 calories of which from fat with 4.5 grams total fat) it was (and is still probably) a tasty lunch or dinner.

Anyway, in the half-hour I needed to kill before my Elmer’s Goo set I went into uncharted territory and tried one of Subway’s breakfast Muffin Melts. I know I could have gone to McDonald’s (their sausage is made from addictive crack, after all) but I wanted to take it easy on the calories (and the fat) and I had heard that their breakfast sandwiches were at or around only 200 calories.  With that in mind I bellied up (all puns intended) to the ordering station and ordered myself a Western Egg & Cheese Muffin Melt (using egg whites) on English muffin.

You know what? That was a pretty tasty sandwich. It was fairly comparable to McDonald’s Egg McMuffin in terms of ingredients but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted (and how light it was) and how few calories it had.

Let’s compare:

One McDonald’s Egg McMuffin has 300 calories (110 of which are from fat, with 12 total grams of fat).

One Subway Western Egg & Cheese Muffin Melt had only – get this – 160 calories (35 of which are from fat, with 4 total grams of fat)!

That’s awesome! And the best part was that it tasted like a small, light western omelete. It wasn’t as greasy or as heavy as a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich can be (sorry, Clown but it’s true) and it was pretty cheap (excuse me – inexpensive) at only $2 plus tax.

I know places like McDonald’s or Burger King offer better monetary deals on their food (which is a shame because people eat what’s cheap and it’s the bad foods that are cheap) but for the money that new Subway breakfast Muffin Melt is pretty darn good and a beatter, healthier way to enjoy a fast-food breakfast on a weight loss journey. It may not be the drive-thru at McDonald’s (hell, I don’t know any Subway that even HAS a drive-thru) but it’s worth the few extra minutes it will take you to get out of your car…

…and you’ll even burn a calorie or two walking to get it. How cool is that?!

A plain milk chocolate Hershey bar. That was one of my mom, JoAnn’s, favorite treats.

Today is June 9th, the one-year anniversary of her passing. It is also the last of the firsts without her physically being present on Earth (you know, the first set of holidays, my first birthday, her first birthday, Mother’s Day, etc.) and you guys know I have been thinking about this day for quite some time now, sometimes with a bit of sadness and sometimes with a smile from a wonderful memory.

And sometimes, like today, with the strongest taste for a plain milk chocolate Hershey bar.

I have shared many things about my mom with you but I don’t think I’ve ever shared with you some of her favorite foods. The foods that made her happy. The foods that made us both heavy. Hell, even the foods we didn’t have sometimes. The foods we could (and couldn’t) afford. So today I am going to celebrate my mom’s life by talking about her favorite foods (and some of my own, too). It may not be the healthiest blog post I’ve ever done but it will be fun…and slightly mouth watering.

My mom, JoAnn Larson, was always fond of saying how much she loved to eat two things when she was pregnant with me – Chinese food, and chocolate and vanilla ice-cream. She used to eat so much ice-cream in fact that she was convinced that was why my tummy is slightly lighter on one side than the other (my birthmark – a chocolate ice-cream half and a vanilla half). I have to laugh at that one given my half-white/half-black bi-racial make-up. It always seemed corny but I could never disprove it, especially since I had physical proof.

She also loved her some beef chop suey.

When my mom was kicked out of her home in Cicero, Illinois for daring to date and bear the child of a black man (gasp, the drama) she moved to Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side. This was a wonderful place because it was so mixed in terms of it’s population. It also had the best kick-ass Chinese food on the planet from Lung Wah Chop Suey. It was there she found her love for beef chop suey (and gave me mine). My mom had it when she was pregnant with me and treated us to it all the time (when we had the money) when I was growing up. It was our fast food of choice, over McDonald’s, Wendy’s and even Harold’s Chicken. An order of beef chop suey and three egg rolls is what we used to get. Damn, those were the days.

There was also Pat’s Pizza, the pizza joint right across the street from where we lived (and where my mom established credit for us during our leanest times). I don’t know how the name just came to me (I couldn’t remember the name for the longest time) but I am thankful it did (thanks for the reminder, ma). Even if we didn’t have money my mama made sure we, and I, ate and there were many a night when we had either meatball sandwiches or a large sausage pizza. Sure there were times we got sick of it (because we had it a lot) but damn it was good, and their pizza had such a distinctive taste that when I found Al’s Italian restaurant and Pizzeria one year ago as my mom lay in hospice I cried because it tasted exactly the same. I needed that taste of childhood at this time last year.

Then there was Valois, the cafeteria-style staple of Hyde Park. This was truly a place where the melting pot of Hyde Park’s eclectic community came to make soup. My mom loved their breakfast – sausage, two eggs over easy and potatoes with white bread toast – and their lunch – pot roast, with mashed potatoes and gravy and fruit Jello for dessert (there’s always room for Jello). On Saturday’s Valois had spaghetti and meat sauce. We used to get that with a side order of “mash and gravy” (don’t ask why we had potatoes with spaghetti. Just roll with it). And many a Thanksgiving was spent there, if not at my mom’s best friend, Rosalyn’s, house, having their “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner (turkey and all the trimmings). And did I tell you this place has grits for breakfast? Awesome!!!

My mama also loved her fish, and we visited the Cafe Enrico frequently to take advantage of their “all you can eat” fried perch dinner. Hell no, it wasn’t good for us but it was damned good and damned cheap, too. In later years, when she lived with me for a while on the City’s North Side, we got fried fish and fries from a place called the Fish Keg on Howard Street. Again, not healthy at all, but some damned good-tasting food.

Rosalyn was an awesome cook, too. She’d make us fried chicken, spaghetti, greens, corn bread, beans and rice…everything. She even fried up some chicken wings and made spaghetti one night when we were so broke all my mom had was bus fare to get back and forth to work. My mom called Rosalyn in what had to be a pride-breaking moment and asked if she could make us something to eat – and she did. Thank God for Rosalyn. That night we ate and didn’t go hungry, and it was also that night I firmly remember saying to myself I’d never EVER go that hungry again. That I’d help my mom any way I could understand how to make money stretch so we’d never have to feel that poor. That was when I began my truest understanding of how cold money could be. If you have it, great. But when you don’t have it…

…but this is not a sad talk. It’s a talk about food, and no food conversation about my mom would be complete without memtioning her love of fried chicken, speaking of chicken. We used to eat at Harold’s Chicken all the time, but her first love was Kentucky Fried Chicken. For as far back as I can remember she loved (and therefore I loved) their extra crispy chicken (until they messed it all up and made it spicy crispy. ick.), mashed potatoes and gravy (noticing a trend?) and cole slaw (which I am now sure contains a level of crack cocaine or other addictive narcotic). Even when she was diagnosed diabetic in her later years I used to bring her the occasional KFC meal and sit and enjoy it with her, and she loved every bite. her and the cat, that is.

On Sunday’s we used to get sweet rolls and other pastries from the fresh bakery that was perfectly placed between where we lived and the park we went to every week. We used to get danishes, and she’d get her coffee (extra cream, no sugar) and we’d enjoy decadent sweets while sitting in the park or reading the paper at home. It was in this park I scattered her ashes almost a year ago.

Lastly, my mom loved her Pepsi. Back in the day, pop could be purchased in actual glass bottles (still the best-tasting way to enjoy an ice-cold soda) and we used to save our pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters to be able to afford a case of “the good stuff.” We’d put it right in the fridge and, when it was cold, would pop open a bottle and enjoy it together. Or we’d sit outside on the benches a couple of blocks away and enjoy a cold one on a hot summer night. Those were awesome times. And even though I have switched and am now a Coke man, I will occasionally have a Pepsi and think of my mom. For old time’s sake.

Well, as they say times change and you can’t go home again. Lung Wah Chop Suey, Pat’s Pizza and the bakery no longer exist. When I spread her ashes almost a year ago I would have given anything to have at least an egg roll from Lung Wah just to ease the pain a bit. But no dice. Or maybe that’s a good thing. Harold’s is still just as active as ever and I do have it from time to way occasional time when I visit, and there is nothing like trying to find a table in the now-double-the-size Valois for a taste of breakfast served just the same way as when I was a kid.And if I ever get a hankerin’ for pizza, I’ll always (hopefully) have Al’s.

But no matter where I go in the U.S., no matter what time of day and no matter what convenience store in which I shop I can always have the first and best thing that reminds me most, culinarily speaking) of my 0f my sweet and beautiful mama…

…that simple, wonderful and amazing plain milk chocolate Hershey bar.