Ham? Bacon? Meat-lovers' pizza? Give me all of it.
Welcome to "Two Weeks Without," where Yours Truly goes without an item for a certain amount of time and reports back with the possible benefits (or disadvantages) of that particular item. This time, I went without eating meat.
If you know me at all, I'm sure there are several thoughts running through your head—from, "This isn't the first time she's tried this" to "She loves bacon way too much for this to last." These are some of the usual reactions to me trying to do any kind of diet. While I don't eat copious amounts of unhealthy food, I'm not usually a dieter. I'm a big believer in moderation.
Even so, for the sake of this column, last Friday, I went without meat.
"Hold on, that's not two weeks!" you mutter as you stare at your internet device. And no -- no, it is not two weeks. It was one week ago that I went meat-free.
I started my first day with grits and picked around the chicken on a salad at my parents' house, occasionally feeding the chicken to their bulldogs (they have four of them). We have a corgi; they have bulldogs. This is very much what it is like to eat at my parents' house, just multiplied by four:
Courtesy of HilariousGifs.com
Everything was going great! I made poppyseed chicken for the hubby on Sunday, while I ate salad and some pasta. I started to feel good. I felt less lethargic and I didn't have as much trouble waking up in the morning. I know -- three days isn't long at all. I was not completely cured, but I was starting to feel better.
It wasn't until Monday that things started to go wonky on me. The hubby and I had been planning to go out for pizza at a new restaurant when our puppy Daisy's other corgi friends came outside to play. Quicker than a flash, Daisy, my husband, and I all ran outside to meet them. Happy corgi chaos ensued! And our pizza plans were forgotten.
Two hours later, the other puppies went home, our bellies were empty, and it was too late to cook. So we made the decision to go to McDonald's, which is (much too conveniently) 50 feet from our home. There's also a mulched pathway that the sweet McDonald's employees use to coerce us inside. It's like they know our deepest, darkest, chicken nugget-yearning thoughts.
So I walked inside that McDonald's, and we ordered a burger and a 10-piece chicken nugget meal. Then at home, like the full-grown adult with self-control that I am, I ate all 10 of those chicken nuggets, completely forgetting about my pledge to go meatless. I failed miserably! I made it for three days and then failed -- with chicken nuggets of all the things!
Right after I finished my last nugget, I realized what I had just done to myself. I am a weak chicken nugget fiend.
Courtesy of funnymemes.com
I felt so awful when I messed up that I decided to go ahead and finish out the week on my diet. It would have been pointless to write about just a three-day diet. And after resuming over the next four days, I did feel better physically, aside from having to eat a little more to feel full.
Maybe one day I'll try again to go without meat for two weeks. But today we can chalk it up to a failure. Now excuse me while I go dance around my kitchen with some bacon.
Are you a meat-lover who's gone a period of time without meat? How did it make you feel? What else should I try in this new OCN series? Tell me in the comments!
**Featured image courtesy of The Spinoff.
Check back in two weeks to see how I handle going without sugar!
