Day One Hundred Twelve

Breakfast

• Total with almonds, raisins, wheat germ & 1% milk

It's funny, but 1% milk tastes incredibly rich after all the skim milk I've been drinking - this breakfast was the kind of treat where I could delude myself into thinking I'd poured cream on my cereal. Wow I am easy to please in the mornings.

Lunch
(not pictured)

I had to go to Costco with a chairperson for my role as food supervisor for an organization this weekend. In addition to picking up a cart full of cheese, sausages, and other tempting treats, I snacked liberally on the free samples, which included: glazed cake, brownies, ice cream sandwiches, salad with vinagrette dressing, Italian wedding soup, Monster energy drink, and rice milk. There may have been more.

I decided it was enough snacking to count as my lunch meal, but then I made things more complicated when I got home. For this show, I am preparing a lot of food, including chocolate-covered strawberries, which I've never made before. I gave it a practice run to make sure I could properly temper the chocolate, but then found I had some leftover (ordinarily a dream come true). I sliced up a kiwi and ate it fondue-style dredged in chocolate, then made a few chocolate-covered almonds. Lastly I had half a slice of bread to scrape up the rest of the chocolate in the pot. All things considered, I could have pigged out much worse, but it was a little uncomfortable being around all that chocolate and not really enjoying it.

This food-supervisor thing is going to be difficult since, given the opportunity, I've designed a fairly decadent and definitely unhealthy menu. I realize it is a touch of wish fulfillment, to get to prepare these foods and watch other people enjoy them, but it will be a little difficult to stand with platters of my favorite foods and know I can't eat much of anything but the salad or fruit...

Snack

• garlic & onion soy chips with cranberry juice

While I prepared angel food cake and surveyed recipes for cucumber sandwiches and bacon-wrapped scallops, I had this snack, trying to stave off temptation to "sample" ingredients for the catered food. I fear this is a hopeless cause, so I am waiting until tomorrow to prepare the sausage and peppers and cheese platter.

Dinner

• broccoli & mushroom pita bread pizza (made with salsa)

After all the chocolate, this was a refreshing change of pace. At first I considered just gnoshing on whatever I wanted (since I'd already blown it with the snacking), but then I decided that made it especially important to get a decent, nutritious meal in. I felt a lot less hyper after eating something substantive as well - I forgot the way that sugary food can make you feel full even when your body is still hungry.

Since I had had the kiwi earlier, I ommitted fruit from this meal. To be more specific, I feared that if I allowed myself to open the fridge again, I would rationalize eating the now-finished chocolate-covered strawberries as my fruit. I'm glad I resisted that.