At work last night, we were talking about coffee, tea, sodas and caffeine. Everyone agreed that caffeine was absolutely necessary for them – no way they could give it up. I once felt exactly the same way – until three weeks ago.

That’s when I gave it up.

After those first few days when a universe was born inside my skull and after my ears stopped bleeding, I started getting used to it. I quit drinking coffee and Diet Coke a week before I went on 100% juice; so, I don’t really think that the extreme fatigue I experienced then was related to becoming decaffeinated. But, it might have been. Regardless, in spite of the Sunday when I could not lift my head off the pillow, the process of decaffeinating myself didn’t kill me.

So, I was wrong. I CAN give up caffeine. I can and I DID. And, at the moment, I have no plans to put it back into my diet.

As I sit here at my kitchen table, drinking my cup of orange spice herbal tea, I am loving that there are no artificial sweeteners in my system from diet foods, drinks, gum, or other snacks. And I love that there are no stimulants coursing through my blood that my body didn’t make for itself.

Oh, my! I really may be turning into a bean freak! Soon I’ll be going everywhere barefoot. I’ll start saying “man” and “groovy” all the time (wait, I already say “groovy” all the time). I’ll go to Burning Man.  I’ll stop shaving. Alright, that’s a little much. I’m not giving up my Schick. But, still, I’m liking this new experience.

I really like that my heartbeat is more normal. You see, I have an irregular heartbeat, the cardiologist I saw many years ago called it a premature heartbeat. I went to see him because, while I didn’t think I was having a heart attack, I felt a sensation in my chest that just wasn’t right. He said that drugs could treat the condition; but, that the side effects from the drugs were worse than the condition itself! Since he said that the condition wasn’t going to hurt me, I have never treated it. Instead, I’ve used it as a stress barometer. When life is calm, I may feel the odd beat once every one or two days. When I’m under a lot of stress, I feel the odd beat twenty or more times in a single day. Any sort of ingested stimulant increases the frequency; so, drinking my Diet Cokes makes it worse. Can I tell you that I haven’t felt the odd beat at all in the last couple of weeks? It’s pretty fantastic, I must say.

I still like a nice, hot cup of something now and again; so, I’ve begun exploring the world of herbal teas. Thus far, chamomile is a total no-go for me..yick. But, orange spice, pomegranate pizzazz, and vanilla Sleepytime are all big favorites. If you’ve got a favorite, I’d love to hear about it!

So, like I said, I have no plans to reintroduce caffeine into my diet. I’m going to continue to make myself a decaf!

Let’s play a little game of word association. If I say birthday, you say? Cake. If I say movie, you say? Popcorn. Burger? Fries. Christmas? Cookies. Thanksgiving? Turkey. So many of the things we do and events we celebrate are so solidly paired with foods that we can hardly think of one without the other, right?

When I was first starting to eat mindfully and make healthful choices, a large part of my struggle was unpairing events and food. It was similar to when I quit smoking…every single time I did it.

I smoked when I drove, when I drank coffee, when I drank beer or when I read on Saturday afternoons. When I decided to give up the cancer sticks, I had to change other behaviors, as well. It was difficult – very difficult. I had to find substitute behaviors to fill the void the cigarettes left. When I drank coffee or read, I filled that void with food, which turned out to be a totally different struggle, as you know. When I drank beer, I filled the void with drink stirrers. I chewed on them.

One night when I was out in Atlanta with friends, drinking Guinness and debating the pros and cons of the death penalty (light conversation for light beer), I nearly took the waiter’s hand off for trying to take my collection of drink stirrers. Others at the table were smoking, but I was dutifully chewing on my little plastic straws. Ridiculous? Sure, but it got me through the night.

I thought of that night on Monday when I went to see the new Sin City with my friend David – the one who remembers to get butter all the way through the popcorn. I didn’t have any popcorn that day, but it was a struggle – not because I was hungry, I wasn’t. But because eating popcorn is just what I do at the movies.

It’s the Where and When that is the Why.

When I’m at home, I eat salted peanuts in the shell; but, I’m pretty sure the Roxy would frown on me dragging in a bag of peanuts then leaving bits of shell everywhere. Plus, there would be the blood after the other viewers tore me limb from limb for making all that racket. Nah. The teenagers at the theater definitely don’t get paid enough to deal with that. My struggle to keep my mitts out of the popcorn bucket decreased as the movie went on, not only because of the implied and displayed gore of the film but also because I got more and more comfortable with just not eating while I watched.

Making healthful food choices at home is a challenge due to budget, time and convenience. Making them out and about is a challenge largely due to availability. But the challenge for making mindful choices is the same regardless of location. It’s important to my continuing health improvement that I eat mindfully and purposefully rather than habitually.

It’s vital that my Why is the Why I chose, not the one Where and When did.

When my son was a little guy, sometimes it was a wonder just watching him eat. As a toddler, he could put away two eggs, a piece of toast, two slices of bacon and a glass of milk. The child had two hollow legs and a hole in one foot! No kidding, he ate like a field hand.

But only when he was about to have a growth spurt.

He would carb up, chow down, get a little round in the middle, then stop eating almost completely as he shot up. During the times when he was growing and off his food, I would mix Pediasure with milk to give him chocolate milkshakes, or what he called his “nutritionals.”

As the toddler became the little boy, the little boy became the big boy, and the big boy became the young man, the volume of food ingested prior to growth spurts became almost staggering. He drank up to four gallons of milk a week and could just about eat us out of house and home. “All You Can Eat Buffet” became the priority feature when choosing a restaurant for him and I was all for it, as well.

I could eat a plate of salad, another of meat and veggies (and I use the term veggies loosely), and a final plate of dessert. I wanted to get my money’s worth, didn’t I? Of course, I did! And, boy, did I ever! Right on up to about 240 pounds. I could barely fit in the chairs. I was just one milkshake away from needing a seat belt extension when I flew. Of course, that wasn’t all from buffets, but goodness knows I enjoyed every morsel they had to offer.

Fast forward three years and few things are as effective as an All You Can Eat Buffet for getting me back on track for eating correctly.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went with some coworkers at a local breakfast buffet on Saturday morning. Nearly everything on the buffet was either bread (muffins, waffles, pancakes), animal protein (eggs, bacon, sausage, hash), carbs (hashbrowns, home fries, sawmill gravy) or sugar (canned fruit, syrup, chocolate gravy). Oatmeal was the only marginally healthy option. I say marginally because there was a film of grease over nearly everything – a film that three years ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed. Now, it makes my stomach turn.

It also makes my stomach turn to see obese diners who are like I once was – unable to fit into a single chair comfortably, going back for second and third helpings, gorging on more calories than they need to consume in two days, consuming more sodium than they need in three days, clogging their arteries, confounding their insulin production, putting stress on their organs and on their joints. And feeding their already overweight children the same way.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a breakfast buffet or a lunch or dinner one. Lunch or dinner ones offer more “vegetables;” but, overcooked string beans, limp turnip or collard greens cooked with fat back, mushy buttered baby carrots, fried okra, corn fritters, fried squash, fried macaroni and cheese, iceberg lettuce are hardly sources of good nutrition. The nutrition has been cooked out of or negated in all the cooked veggies and the salads are mostly iceberg lettuce which is water and fiber.

Next time you find yourself at one of these buffets, rather than looking at the buffet with your stomach, look with your intellect. Is what you see offered there going to move you towards better health or is it going to sabotage your efforts? Use these tips to eat mindfully, or go on the Buffet Diet and start with a great big serving of turn around and leave.

It’s not secret that I have an unhealthy relationship with kettle corn. I think I’ve mentioned it, oh, like a bajillion times. And, just so you know, popped corn doesn’t have to be sweet for me to indulge in it. Oh, no! I also enjoy it with just butter and salt – the more butter, the better! If it’s almost soggy, I’m still good with it. When I go to the movies, I usually get some. I love it when I go with my friend David because he always remembers to ask them to alternate between layers of popcorn and drizzles of butter. That way the buttery goodness is the whole way through the bucket. That’s right. I said bucket. Bags are for amateurs. (Unless you’re at home and it’s the movie butter microwave bag. That’s totally allowed.)

So, on Saturday morning after I got off work, I stopped by Red Box and got three movies for a marathon later in the day. I was still 100% juicing that morning; so, I lamented that I would have no snacks while I watched Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle, and About Time; but, I hadn’t had a movie marathon in quite some time and was willing to forgo snackage.

By the time I sat down to watch the movies, I’d already nearly face-planted twice in the hallway and had decided to add some solid foods to the juice. Still, I wasn’t going to eat popcorn which really has no nutritional value whatsoever. I couldn’t think what I could snack on that would be acceptable. The answer came to me when I was at Tractor Supply Company buying food for my horde. Right there next to the door was a big display of salted, roasted peanuts…in the shell!

Perfect!

Peanuts in a can are just a hazard. I can dip my hand in there and just keep on eating until my reasonable snack has become a 2000 calorie monster. But, peanuts in the shell are different – they have a built in governor…the shell! I have take the time to shell them, which makes me slow down. Sure, they’re messy; but, I have a vacuum and I’m not afraid to use it.

By eating peanuts in the shell, I get the saltiness that I want (which also helps raise my blood pressure a little bit). I also get oil to help my chapped lips, and I get protein from the legume. All kinds of winning going on there.

My dad has called me a movie hound for years since I watch so many of them. And, I’ll admit it: I am pretty wild about the movies. Or, I was. From now on, I’ll be nuts about them.