posted
My wife and I started eating healthy in 2008. Fresh produce, more fish, less red meat, and a moratorium on the processed foods, refined sugars, and other foods that made life oh so enjoyable up until now.
And I’m okay with it. I can eat healthy, as long as someone else cooks it for me. I even took a stab at healthy cooking myself, while my wife was sick. Garlic and onion Turkey burgers in pita pockets with red onions and provolone cheese. Delicious.
We’re spending less on groceries, losing weight, and feeling better.
But.
But I can’t say I don’t miss the days of consuming an entire pan of brownies, or the skyscraper-sized Mud Pie at the Elephant Bar.
Oh, the pizza at Round Table, which is all I’d eat. The Country Fried steak at Chili’s. I would gorge on the Cheddar Bay biscuits at Red Lobster. Oh, so many great tasting but heart-killing foods.
So we won’t go crazy. We won’t say we can’t ever have the stuff we used to eat.
I believe in moderation, but there’s no sense going overboard about it.
So for our daughter’s half-birthday, we went out for lunch and Ate Bad, including a Cheesecake/Chocolate Torte for dessert that was scrumptious.
And therefore, I propose a new Holiday: Gluttony Day.
See, we’re not on a diet. This is just the way we are going to live from now on. And what will keep us on this regimen will be the light at the end of the tunnel:
Gluttony Day. Every February 29th.
Once every four years, we can eat whatever we want, as much as we want.
I’m taking the day off work. We will probably spend several nights making lists of our most lusted-after foods, and planning the most efficient way to eat as much as we can from as many different food genres as we can.
After all there’s no sense just shoveling a whole large thick crust pepperoni and sausage from Round Table down one’s gullet and being too full for chocolate lasagna afterwards. There’s no style in that anyway.
Oh yes: this is a single day. That means no leftovers. Nothing can be saved to eat the next day or week. One day of foodbauchery, and then back to everyday healthy eating.
That will save money, and save our waistlines and resolve as well.
So we shall plan. And when the 29th comes, we shall reign. For a day, we shall be Kings and Queens, and consume the world.
And then it’s back to nourishing garbanzo bean soup.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Once every four years? That tunnel end is too far off for me to see (except this month).
I live by the 80/20 rule. If 80% of what I eat is good for me, full of fibre and vitamins and wholesomeness, I can be forgiven a brownie now and again, or having hot chocolate with breakfast (helps me get calcium!). I also seem to be making my own sweets nowadays, which means I can sneak in low-fat margarine or a bit of wholemeal flour and avoid the preservatives and such. And so far, so good. Having that little bit of wiggle room means I'm not so tempted and I'm more likely to stay on the straight and narrow.
posted
I'm not entirely sure that you know the full story behind mardi gras. The origins of it are pretty much identical to what you're talking about...
"Fat Tuesday" (Mardi Gras) is the day before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent and as a result the beginning of the 40 day period of fasting leading up to easter. Historically people would gorge themselves on fat tuesday because they knew that they'd have to be eating less (and less fun) food for the next 40 days...
now the impetus behind fat tuesday was only because of a 40 day stint of more sparse consumption, but in essence it's exactly what you're proposing (and even pretty close in date... though it's based on the lunar calendar rather than solar).
So basically even if you're not Catholic/Christian there's already a holiday layed out for you Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
It was also the last chance to use up the meat and fat you couldn't have during Lent and which would go bad before Easter. Ever notice that no matter how hard you try to eat everything up on schedule, there's always something lurking at the back of the fridge on that last day? (This happens to me when I'm moving houses or going to the cottage as well.)
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
My family has "Naughty Day" once every year or so in which you can eat on the floor or on the table or off the table, or from the trucks of an electric train set set up on the table. You can eat gummy worms all day (if you can without getting sick) and watch TV during the day.
Not only did it serve to show that it was okay to do fun things, and to show what others considered fun thins (my mother would eat smoked salmon instead of gummy worms, for example) but also to solidify how important living and eating well is. A day spent in bed eating gummy worms makes you feel pretty gross.
posted
I'm aware of the origins of Mardis Gras. (And I got my free pancakes at IHOP too.) Are there similarities? Sure. Does it have much to do with what Mardis Gras is today? As far as I can see, Mardis Gras is no longer about food at all, but is about partying, ususally of the drunken and underdressed variety.
Gluttony Day on the other hand is a holiday for the whole family, and is about the food, not about having a festival, parade, party, or whatever.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I had my gluttony day on Wednesday. A friend took me out to eat at an Indian restaurant with a buffet, and when I left I was SO regretting the fact that I've never learned to eat slowly. I ate way too much food before the "full" signals started getting to my brain, and by the time I left I nearly had to be rolled out the door.
So when I went out to eat again yesterday (at Sweet Tomatoes, another buffet-style place), I practiced putting my fork down between every bite of food. Amazing how it was far less imperative to try several kinds of soup after eating that way.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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