I feel so much better now that I’ve had my lunch! Phew! I got a portobello mushroom “burger” which was a mushroom with a whole wheat bun. It was super juicy and delicious, topped with grilled red pepper strips and just YUM. I was sooooo hungry. This is a good warning to myself to EAT, especially in the morning. Sometimes when I can’t decide what to eat, I will grab a string cheese and that is often better than nothing.

It was interesting sitting around in this ice cream parlor place, watching other people. There was one family next to us: the parents were both significantly overweight, and they had one overweight kid and two regular-weight kids. They ordered burgers, fried onion rings (one of my prior favorites),  and sodas. Afterward, they had these giant sundaes. I looked at them and thought, really, is that what I want? To not have to think about what I eat? Because I would have made similiar choices at certain points in my past.

There was another older couple sitting nearby. The woman (I noticed she had a medic-alert bracelet on and wondered if it was for diabetes) was quite slender. She ate a small salad (picked off the croutons and put on her husband’s plate). The man was pretty overweight. He ordered a cheeseburger, potato chips, a chocolate shake with whipped cream. I thought, she is clearly making a choice there. She’s conscious. But is it for her health? Because she thinks she can’t eat that stuff?

It was just… interesting. I do see my weight loss journey like being on a river. Sometimes I’ve been on the Ignorance side, where I’m defiantly NOT making choices because of health or weight loss reasons.  When I’m over there, I look at the Conscious side, and think it doesn’t look like fun at all. When I’m on the Conscious side, I am afraid of falling off and ending up on the Ignorant side. It would be nice if I could just paddle down the middle, never being totally out of control but not having to spend so much time and energy on food stuff every minute. I’m hoping that as the healthy choices become more automatic and natural, it won’t be so time consuming.

My portobello mushroom burger was very satisfying and yummy. I was happy I made that choice. But for a few minutes, I longed for that Ignorance… until I looked around and saw what that really looked like.