Fast food first aid? My wife's not buying it - literally

Last night (Wednesday) I pulled a stupid stunt and took the wrong insulin. I am diabetic and I take two kinds of insulin every day and the dosages are wildly different. So, long story short, I accidentally took 10 times the amount of insulin I should have! Needless to say, such a mistake could be very damaging, even potentially fatal (not to sound like a drama queen or anything). My wife Terri, who is always calm in a storm, sprung into action and called poison control. 

As my blood sugar dropped 160 points, Terri checked it every 15 minutes, gave me apple juice - any kind of sugar in liquid form helps right away - and also I was lucky enough that there were brownies in the refrigerator. :-) I also suggested that fast food, which as many of you know I've "given up" for Lent and is the subject of this blog, would help. All those good french fries and their carbs would help the situation, I argued. But Terri knows better. Not only did she not want to leave my side, the look on her face told me that I did not need all the sodium and fat a nice fast food meal would provide.

So even in the doldrums of low blood sugar, I was trying to sneak that food back into my life. The addiction remains, although the longer I stay away, hopefully the weaker its hold on me will become. I've fallen more than once in the past three weeks, but I've still eaten far less fast food than I would have under normal circumstances, so I look at that as a victory. Small victory, but one nonetheless.

Anyone else out there giving up something for Lent? How are you doing?

Is Dairy Queen fast food?

My family joined the ranks of the minivan crowd this weekend. I was unsure, but it's great, lots of room and looks nice too.

To celebrate, we hit Dairy Queen. It never even occurred to me, or to my wife and kids - or else they kept their mouth shut for fear their ice cream itch might not get scratched - that DQ would count as fast food. But of course it does. So, again dear friends, I have fallen. But I choose to look at it this way: I have eaten a lot less fast food the past three weeks than I would have normally has I not given it up for Lent. So I'm still on the plus side of the equation. And that Midnight Truffle Blizzard was sure good.

P.S. My son Tyler deserves a big shout-out. He gave up pop (soda) of any kind for Lent and has done better at that than I have done at fast food.

Good job T, love ya.

'Pinetop' and McDonald's

Bluesman Joe Willie 'Pinetop' Perkins recently passed away. The man was 97 and played with greats such as Muddy Waters.

The interesting aspect of his life, as it pertains to this blog, is that Pinetop, who became the oldest person to win a Grammy award at the age of 94, ate McDonald's fast food every day, as Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

So here I am, trying to give up fast food for Lent, and this talented man ate it every day and nearly lived to be 100.

Ah, but I am aware that not everyone's body or system reacts the same. Pinetop also smoked since he was 9 and drank a lot too, it seems. Maybe he would have lived to 110 had he cut out those habits :-)

God Bless Pinetop, but I don't think that diet, no matter how much I wish it would, would work for me. Plus, one of the reasons I'm trying to deny myself fast food is for budgetary purposes. It is a lot cheaper to pack my lunch.

But, my hat's off to Pinetop. His life was far from perfect, but he beat the system.

Hope Springs eternal

Happy Spring everyone.

I haven't posted in several days, but I'm back for a quick update. I fell off the wagon last week in my Lenton pledge to give up fast food , but have spent some time working on watching my carbs, staying away from fast food and checking my blood sugar regularly. I gotta say, I'm craving a Big Mac and fries right now, but am going to try and placate myself with a mozzarella string cheese and a piece of fruit - a cross between a plum and an apricot, I've never heard of such a beast.

Anyway, back to work Monday morning with a healthy lunch packed. I'm going to experiment with a Full Bar, which you eat a half an hour before a meal and it is supposed to curb appetite, but not with any appetite suppressant.

Talk to you soon

Standing eight count

Has it really been just a week since Lent started and I vowed to give up fast food? Feels like eons. Well, it's been a hard week to give up my drug of choice (french fries and cheeseburgers are drugs, right?) Good friend and all-around character John Keith passed away; I toiled in the sports writing field with him for about seven years and never tired of his stories about life on the road in the good old days with people like Barry Switzer, Jackie Sherrill and Dave Bliss. (We had a few good old days ourselves with My Brother's Place happy hour and other venues.)

My son, who faces kidney surgery, has battled a kidney infection and 104 degree temperature and my parents, who've been in town from Pennsylvania since December waiting for the surgery - which has been scheduled and rescheduled five times - finally had to give up and head back to the great Commonwealth. (Actually that's a good new-bad news type of thing ;-) - love ya mom ) But none of that is an excuse for what happened to me today, Wednesday.

I discovered that I did not have a spoon for the blueberry yogurt in my lunch and, to make up for that bitter piece of injustice, I had a cheeseburger from one of our fine, fast food establishments. Yes, I stumbled after one week.

But I still have five weeks to go and I know I'll have more successes than failures during that time period. I may fall again, but then again, maybe I won't.

Just ask boxing writer extraordinaire Felix Chavez: many a fighter has gotten knocked down in the early rounds, only to come up off the canvas with time to impress the judges or even land just the right blow.

"Don't call it a comeback. I been here for years."
— LL Cool J 'Mama Said Knock You Out'

Oh come on! Bacon-wrapped hot dogs?

OK, Wienerschnitzel has just announced its new Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog line. Come on, a man swearing off fast food for Lent can only take so much!

Sure, I know many of you disdain fast food, but for those of you who share the vice with me, doesn't it seem like every time you make a commitment to stop or cut back, some juicy deal or new item comes along. For example, about a decade ago, I got all worked up to lose weight. The very day I debuted my new attitude toward food, I drove by a McDonald's, and I saw a sign for 99-cent Big Macs. I looked up at the sky and cried out, "Oh, come on. Was this necessary?"  Needless to say I failed the test miserably. 

So, I have the battle scars. I'll just grit my teeth - or sew the damn things shut - and keep on driving past the drive-thrus.  St. Augustine allegedly said, "Lord, make me chaste, but not yet." Well, I think I've used up all my "not yet" time, so bacon-wrapped hot dogs, you won't win this round!

Gum and Neil Young

Those afternoon fast food cravings are easier to survive with some sugar free gum - right now I'm champing (I prefer "champing" to "chomping," from a pleasing prose standpoint, don't you?) on some "React 5" mint-flavored gum from the good folks at Wrigley. I also enjoy the "Rain" and  "Cobalt" flavors. Community editor Francis Silva and I trade pieces of gum back and forth often. (To be fair, most of the "trading" is Francis sharing with me, but I chip in a pack from time to time.)

I've found that putting some Neil Young - currently 'Unknown Legend - Unplugged' - on the headphones and working over a piece of gum or two will help the afternoon slip by faster. Ultimately, though, I need a little bit of protein, peanut butter and pretzels is my favorite way, to allow me to fight my car's steering wheel on the way home and keep the vile beast from turning into a fast-food establishment! Or something like that!

OK, so I'm surviving Day 6.

Meatballs

Friday was a long day made longer with doctor's appointment. Supper time at about 9 p.m. and all the makings for meatball sandwiches are in the fridge. I just eat the meatballs out of a bowl. I'm so tired and I figure fewer carbs right? Too bad there were a lot of damn meatballs in the bowl! Sometimes I'm like a drinker who has a blackout. I come to, and the empty bowl is spinning, there's a stain on my t-shirt and my stomach feels like it was just hit by a freight train. This always happens late at night, which then makes it a fun job to try and fall asleep.

A time or too I've actually - how can I say this delicately - made myself return my just-swallowed (and possibly chewed a little) late-night snack to the earth, via the toilet. But what makes that tricky is if I've already taken my insulin, I have to make sure my blood sugar does not drop too low. That is a very strange feeling at 2 in the morning to wake up shaking and barely able to get out of bed and make your way to the peanut butter jar with all the colored spots dancing before your eyes. So, gotta be careful. Don't want any insulin-induced comas. Plus, how ridiculous would it be to be the world's first 400-pound bulemic ( I exaggerate my weight, somewhat, for comedic effect). Anyway, whenever I regurgitate, blood vessels in my face break and I look like a freak and I can't hide from my wife what I've just done.

But anyway, Saturday makes day 4 and still no fast food. :-)

2 down, 44 (days of hell) to go

Whataburger was calling to me last night. I could hear it's small, tempting voice, like a devil on my shoulder. "Who would know?" Some nice, warm, salty french fries along with college basketball talk radio on my Sirius is always a comfort after a long day.

But I knew what would happen. The scene has been repeated numerous times before. I'll head to a fast food establishment late at night, and sit in my car idling, just out of range of the speaker at the menu board. I argue with myself.

"I know I'll be miserable as soon as I wolf down this food tonight. Then I have to try to go to sleep with a stomach full of grease and carbs," the me who is speaking from the future argues.

"Yes, but right now, the craving I have and the drive to eat is just as miserable, if not more so, than the aftereffects," the present me, sitting there in the drive-thru lane, argues back.

This goes on for a while and finally I get angry more than frustrated and drive away. (Or maybe a car pulls in behind me and I have to order or leave. You've got to be careful, though, especially in drive-thru lanes that are blocked in. If there is a car or two in front of you, and you change your mind, you need to back up. But if someone pulls in behind, then you're stuck and you either have to give up and order something, OR, just wait in line and breath deeply before you can escape sans food.)

Driving away, though, is not always a solution. I've been known to drive around and then pull into the same drive thru later, and pull away again. Usually I don't do so a third time, in case the eatery has security cameras, I don't want them to think I'm TOO weird. I find another restaurant and pull into their lane, still wondering if I'll have the strength to just go home and not take a hit of my drug of choice. It is pure hell and there is nothing enjoyable in the process. Even when I do finally order something and eat it, I'm miserable.

The only time my drug works is if I am feeling manic and screaming into the void. A good bacon cheeseburger and french fries can calm down my soul. During particularly bad times, when I take those first couple of bites of fast food, I feel the anger and craziness leave my body. It is an actual physical feeling, as if someone connected an electrical wire to me and drained off the manic power. But I must find another alternative. Sometimes sitting in the bath tub, with a hot shower pounding over me and all the lights off, I can get the same peace.

P.S. people seem to be split on whether to count Subway as a fast food, but the slight majority seems to say 'Subway doesn't count.'

Temptation is everywhere

As many of you know, I've given up fast food for Lent.

Here's how the start of my second day went. I didn't get out of bed fast enough to feed my children breakfast. Luckily Tyler, 12, was happy with fruit snacks on the run and my daughter Jessie, 8, is served breakfast at school. So that leaves my 1-year-old, Grant. Wanted to get something in his tummy other than a bottle of soy milk, so we paid a visit to the Sonic on Solano to buy him tater tots. I had a Diet Coke, which I have decided to allow myself - I'll get back to that in a second. Being in a drive-up stall, looking at the menu, it was very tempting to grab something for myself. Who would know? But I bought Grant his tator tots and feed them to him and drove him to day care.

Now, here is a question we've been debating at the office: what is fast food? Sure, we know McDonalds and Wendy's and Taco Bell count. But what about Subway? If I rule out Subway, does that mean I have to rule out all the local delis here in town? What about the deli counter at a supermarket? What about Chinese take-out? What about Pizza Hut delivery?

If I stop at a fast food establishment and get myself a quick drink, but nothing to eat, should that be considered a violation?

Comment and tell me what you think.

Off and running (actually limping, but you understand)

My first crisis was avoided. My parents - visiting all winter from Pennsylvania - who has been coming over in the morning is to babysit, have been stopping in the morning for McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. If she showed up with an Egg McMuffin and hash browns, would I "forget" my Lenten pledge to give up fast food, just hours after it started? I decided I would have to be strong and turn it away.

Luckily, no fast food breakfast arrived. They were thinking of my pledge and, instead, my mother showed up and cooked me eggs and sausage. Not so bad.

But I have a very stressful Wednesday in front of me. Deadline Day. Every Wednesday I have to finish the Monday Business Section and get it to El Paso so they can start designing the page. I want to be done on time so I can have dinner with my family and then go to Ash Wednesday service at Peace Lutheran. So I have to do the flight of the humingbird and work fast to get everything done. That's why drive-thru fast food works well on Wednesdays. A stress reliever. But I'll stick with my packed lunch.

One last fling...

Today is Fat Tuesday, fitting. I've decided to give up fast food for the season of Lent. I'm getting some support, especially from my beautiful wife. But I'm also getting raised eyebrows and smirky "Good luck" comments.

That's understandable. I'm a fast food junkie. It is my drug of choice. There have been times when, after a particularly tough, smash-a-tape-dispenser-against-the-office-wall type of day, that some good, hot, fresh french fries have calmed me down.

But there is fast food junkie remorse. Sitting at the kitchen table with my wife - who is quite beautiful, have I mentioned that! - and going over the receipts in my wallet while we balance the checkbook can be a painful experience. I think I've personally kept the drive-up window industry alive. The remorse goes beyond screwing up the family budget, though. A former football player and track & field athlete who used to run every day, I now resemble a bear who is hulking up for the winter hibernation, only without the sliming value of actually hibernating. And, I have to throw this out there, my emotional well being is definitely worse when I'm on a fast food bender.

So the time has come. No fast food for six weeks. Will I make it? Will some of you see me, late at night, with a pair of Groucho Marx glasses on for disguise, sneaking into one of our fine establishments? Hopefully not, but we'll find out together. Whatever happens, I'll share with everyone. The good, the bad and the ugly.

For those who do not know, it is a tradition for many celebrants to sacrifice something during Lent as a way of preparation for Easter. For that reason, the Tuesday before Lent begins has become a time of indulgence and even party - Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras. So, should I go out and binge today before my fast?