The Schizophrenia Diet

As it pertains to the title of this blog: my apologies if any of you are schizophrenic. I'm fully aware it's a largely misunderstood disease and is nothing to joke about. That said, I'm going to keep it in the title of this blog, and if that offends you: too bad. You'll forget soon enough anyway.

Enter the portal to our inconsistent and excessive grocery purchasing

Kelsey and I tend to diet in trends. The first time we fad dieted was in college when the Atkins Diet briefly convinced everyone eating large piles of bacon and porterhouse steaks would lead to weight loss. We'd planned all winter break to go on Atkins--read about foods we could and couldn't eat; enjoyed some old favorites for the "last time" (one day I had over thirty chicken nuggets combined from both McDonalds and Wendy's); and convinced ourselves we could actually make breakfast in the morning..not just pour a bowl of cereal.

After one bowl of Chex, we decided it was delicious and bought five more boxes. This was last week.

Once the semester started so did our Atkinsing. We lasted two days. More correct, Kelsey lasted two days. I quit in support of her.

Kelsey had an early Tuesday class that semester and needed food before rushing off to class. She quickly poured herself a bowl of Cheerios--an Atkins no no--because, "I don't believe in any stupid diet that says Cheerios are bad for you. Cheerios are good for you." I couldn't disagree because: 1) Cheerios are really really good and 2) Cheerios are probably healthier to eat in the morning than bacon.

Kidney beans from the "Farrell's Days" and fat free refried beans from the "only thing we know how to cook are plain bean burritos days" when we first got married. We've since become more creative and added salsa.

Of course the grocery store wouldn't let us return the plethora of Atkins branded snacks and meals we'd purchased in preparation for the diet. I believe the Southwestern Atkins wrap stayed in my freezer for two more years until graduation. Then I donated it to the Dumpster Diving Society of Ames (or, as you probably know them: DDSA).

Five packages of almond bark from this past Christmas when Kelsey was going to make me delicious Christmas treats and then did not. She basically ruined Christmas.

Tonight I cleaned out our pantry. I'm sad to report nothing has changed...we still gear ourselves up for a diet, or we find a treat we like, and we (okay--I) buy too much of it. We have boxes of Triscuits and cans of kidney beans from our "Farrell's" diet. We have boxes of Chex because we read somewhere that it is a healthy cereal, we ate one bowl, and we loved them (Chex equal awesome). We had five boxes of multi-branded graham crackers because we at some point made some healthy treat with graham crackers...I don't even remember what.

I'm not sure what this could be about. I don't think we've ever opened a can of Hunt's All Natural Diced Tomatoes let alone had any recipes that called for us to buy six jumbo cans.

What's no longer there: the three different canisters of protein powder; the varieties of rice cake snacks; 90-calorie Special K bars; Flax Flour (Huh?); and a can of tuna purchased at the grocery store down the street from our house in the Quad Cities four years ago. I don't think any of these items had anything to do with diets, but the origins of their purchases confused me.

Ain't she cute? Mama likes her Chex.

With the exception of the Chex...which we have been eating a ton of lately, we've been doing much better. We've been planning meals and buying groceries only for that week. Thus we actually use the food we buy. What a concept. Alas, our strange grocery quirks allowed for a trip down memory lane during what for most people would have been a monotonous cleaning of the pantry.