100% Delicious

I went to visit my older sister last week in Texas and she taught me her philosophy about food, which is essentially: never eat anything that isn’t 100% delicious. We both grew up in a weirdy food insecure household. There was always food available, but it wasn’t always edible. That is, we were often fed food that was expired, badly preserved, or just plain rotten and we often got food poisoning as a result. This has had lasting effects on all of us. For me, it has often made it difficult for me to throw out expired food, because that was the habit of my childhood. For my sister, it has made her more and more insistent that as an adult, she will never eat expired food again.

I spent four delicious, wonderful days with my sister, eating out for every meal, finding great new spots and eating at old spots. One afternoon we went to Perry’s and shared their gigantic crusted pork chop, which was amazing and plenty for two old ladies who are height challenged. We often only ate two meals a day because we ate only what we wanted to eat, never more than that. Following a childhood of privation, it has been hard to train myself to listen to my body saying “stop” when I’ve eaten enough. On holidays, I ate and ate and ate as a kid because I didn’t think there would ever be food that good again. As an adult, some part of my brain still doesn’t trust that I will have good food again and I tend to overeat. But even just a few days of eating delicious meal after delicious meal, I started to see how this could change my mindset completely.

I came home with the determination not just to keep up the habit of only eating 100% delicious food all the time for every meal on every occasion, but also to try to extend this philosophy of life to every part of my existence. Only wonderful clothing that looks fantastic and feels great on my body. Only activities that make me happy. Living my best life at every moment. Going out with friends and only people that I really want to spend time with. Choosing to spend my time and energy only on things that truly mattered to me. Sleeping well and waking happily. Exercising joyously and no more pain if I can possibly avoid it.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I will say that the first obstacle that came up immediately with this plan was simply that I had to think about food all the time and I had to spend considerable effort deciding what food would taste delicious in a given moment. I had become used to eating on autopilot, with a pre-determined list of what was “healthy” or “inexpensive,” or simply what was already available so that I could get rid of the hungry feeling in my stomach. It isn’t a simple switch, even just on the food level. On the life level, it’s even more complicated. I am going to have to keep working on it.

I have found that asking myself what would make me happy has weirdly led to me being happier. It’s not necessarily changing what I eat or what I do that seems to make the difference. It is the regular process of telling myself that I deserve to eat only wonderfully delicious food and that I deserve to do only things that make me feel happy. This feedback loop seems to be an important one. Who knew? (Maybe you all knew.)

I haven’t quit my job. I live in the same house. My life will look exactly the same on the outside—maybe? I did buy a bunch of colorful, in your face clothing items that were too expensive but that I decided I wanted. Did I deserve them? Am I being foolish with my spending? Will I regret this impulsive selfishness in twenty years when I have no money to retire on? These are voices from my past, from my childhood and later years of not enough. I’m choosing not to listen to them right now. I am choosing instead to wear a new linen shift dress in bright red-orange that I love. I am choosing to eat mangos and strawberries for breakfast, and yes, eggs more often than the current price of eggs would encourage me to do. I am trying to become more delicious myself, I suppose. I think it is working.