Glean Freak: The Formula

So, last weekend, I got chubby. I hate that. You’re going along, merrily enjoying your life, then boom. You wake up and your jeans are uncomfortably tight. Then you think, oh crap, I forgot to do the formula. I’ll admit that last weekend, being my birthday weekend, included a lot of eating a lot of my favorite things. Stromboli, cheeseburger, fries, spicy crispy beef, frozen custard (does a more perfect food even exist? Anybody? I thought not), popcorn. Oh, and I tried a new and amazing new scotch: Scapa 16year. The scent is almost better than the taste. So maybe all that celebrating has a little something to do with my situation. Whatever.

So now, it’s on to the formula. The formula is the creation of my friend, Monica. I call her my fitness guru, and she is. (She’s also a personal trainer.) Monica has taught me a lot. (I now realize that basically everything I know is from one friend or another. Thanks guys.) She taught me that one must incorporate weights, and one’s body can do more than one thinks, especially if one has Monica leaning over one’s shoulder shouting, “DO IT!” Monica has about one-fifth of one percent body fat. (Boo, hiss.) One day, she told me her own eating plan, which I’ve tried to, more or less, go by ever since, except for on super-fun weekends, or third Tuesdays.

I call it The Formula. It is simple. Small breakfast, like a smoothie, or some nonfat Greek yoghurt with walnuts. Lunch is a salad. This is the interesting part, cause I throw anything I can find in the fridge in it. You need to have a protein in there, like an egg or tuna. You can have a few crackers, too, or a piece of bread. Dinner is just a regular dinner: meat, veggies, starch. You can have a glass of wine, and a small bit of low-fat ice cream also, but you need to work out about 5 hours a week, or more. That’s it. As I was making my lunch salad today, I was caught up short, and thought, preetttty.

I had to run and get my camera so I could remember the lovely color/texture combo forever. Then I noticed the pretty gift bag from the candle my friend, Michelle gave me, then the candle holder in the window…. 185 pictures later I sat down for lunch, but not before snapping the place setting.