Has it ever occurred to anyone that some things that can be seen as annoying by other people, or at least label us as a little weird, can actually be assets regarding the need to lose weight? The realization that popped into my mind was about food, but I believe it could actually be about any of the other aspects of, generally speaking, “living more healthily than before”. And I find the thought… somewhat comforting.
So, about food. About my food habits. More than once, in a book or a website, I’ve read that a good thing to lose weight would be to start with baby steps, for instance by cutting the fat used for cooking in half, using less sauce or cheese on a dish… little tricks like these. It however didn’t make that much sense to me at first, because my own perception of what is needed for cooking is flawed; after the recent visit at my parents, though, I’ve remembered what it was, and also how lucky I am to be able to remove this from my list of worries and “deprivations”. I’m also aware that it’s perhaps also what prevented me from gaining much more weight than I could have; little tings add up, and, well, it’s something that just wouldn’t add up, is all.
I’ve been doing my own cooking for the past 8 years or so, since I live alone. “Cooking” however is too big a word for this, as I’m really a very simple person when it comes to this. I don’t especially like fancy sauces, I’m not even sure that I’d be able to enjoy gourmet food the way it deserves to be enjoyed - part of this being probably due to my personal tastes, all that simply, and the other part being the consequence of my upbringing with crappy, basic foods. I’ve never been taught how to truly appreciate food, thus I don’t feel the need to prepare complex meals. Note that this is worth for wines as well, which always put me in very awkward situations as soon as I go to the restaurant with colleagues and people who have more tastes than I; never ask me to choose a wine to go with a meal, I’ll ruin everything.
I must say, my boyfriend is also exactly the same as I am, except for the fact that he’s even more hardcore: while I tolerate or like certain sauces, for instance, he doesn’t. Our meals at home can seem pretty bland and easy to an outside observer, but the truth is, we still enjoy them. I really, really do enjoy a simple dish of pasta with tomato sauce and some basil on it, and when I say “tomato sauce”, it’s plain crushed tomatoes with salt, nothing more. I don’t need the dish to be made with extra care and little things here and more little things there; ’simple’ tastes just as good to me.
Where does this lead me? To this: I don’t really have to “cut” on anything (and possibly feel deprived), because it’s already done in a way, I’m used to it, and I like it this way. I haven’t suffered from too-fat dishes - or from grazing during the cooking itself, come to think of it! (Alright, I’ll fess up here: I sometimes bake. And whoever has never licked the saucepan “to help clean it off” once the cake was in the oven, huh? These circumstances, fortunately, remain few and apart. Blessed be the Laziness To Bake.)
Alas, this won’t solve my problem of liking some over-processed foods too much, or of not enjoying complex cooking if it happens more than just a few times in the year… however, I’m thinking now that this is very likely an apsect of my persona that has made a small part of the weight loss journey less difficult than it could have been…
- Kery
