The Soda Pop Runneth Over
My boyfriend and I recently took a trip to visit some friends a couple hours away from our hometown. We stayed with them that whole weekend and at the end of it, the only thing I could utter were groans. It wasn’t that the company we kept was stinky bad. It was our friends’ lifestyle choices that left us feeling sick and abused.
I’m blessed that I share a refrigerator with a fella who eats like I do. Many a couple has fought over food—one’s trying to eat right and the other can have endless Twinkies all day long. My boyfriend digs almond milk (score for the girl with lactose intolerance issues!). He loves vegetables and fresh produce and doesn’t really care for dinners served in cardboard boxes. That wasn’t the case with our friends.
You never really think that your friends’ lifestyle choices are your problem…until you spend four nights with those people, and the only thing they have to drink in their refrigerator is diet soda. We ate fast food a lot. We also didn’t do much, physically speaking. One day we didn’t even get out of our pajamas. This would be fine if we were sick and needed the rest, but we’re active twits. We go a bit stir crazy if we’re not up and at ’em. Because of this busy-bee mentality, we eat at least four times a day. Our metabolisms are burning, yo! Only eating twice a day was KILLING us.
By the end of the third day, we were starting to feel sick and sluggish. I thought my guy was going to eat his finger off when we finally got to the airport and could eat breakfast for the first time all weekend. (Never skip breakfast, people! It’s important!) We realized then just how fortunate we are to have not only each other, but also friends in our area who share our health-conscious lifestyle. Having friends who like to work out with us and eat well-balanced meals together makes play time so much more fun.
I obviously love the friends we visited, but next time we’ll make sure to either not stay as long as we did or plan some fun stuff for all of us to do together that gets us up and off the couch. I can’t do the couch-potato/angry-belly thing ever again!
Have you ever found yourself trapped in a different diet hell or gone coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs from too much chill time? —Tish