Amy Scott's Thoughts

I’ve really been living it up the last 24ish hours. I figure if I’m eating only 7 foods for the next week, I’m going to have what I want now and mix it up. This has been a fine line between self-medicating and gluttony. No lie.  I’m the kind of person who likes processed food. I have the world’s biggest sweet tooth. According to my calorie-counting app, these are my 7 most frequently eaten foods:

1. All Natural Fruit Strips
2. Fruit Smiles (Great Value brand fruit snacks)
3. Special K Fruit & Yogurt Cereal w/ skim milk
4. Special K Fruit Crisps
5. Great Value Granola Bars
6. Light Applesauce
7. Light String Cheese

I make meals out of snack foods. Other foods that would make top mention would be Lean Cuisine frozen meals, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and pancakes (with Mrs. Butterworth syrup, of course). Pretty much I have the eating habits of an elementary school student. I just eat things that say “Special K” or “Light” to feel better about my choices. No doubt that while these are low in calories, they are high in ingredients that I can’t pronounce.

Now, Jen Hatmaker (the author of 7) chose very healthy foods for her 7. I think that if I was doing this fast for a month, I might have tweaked my choices. I’m guessing for a week having nothing green in my diet won’t kill me. I honestly rarely eat vegetables. I don’t like them. This is the one area of my life where I feel I shouldn’t be a role model for children. I apologize to the world.

So as promised, listed below are my 7 foods and why I chose them:

1. Honey Wheat Bread – I originally I started with just plain white bread. I started to think about Jen and I changed my choice to Honey Wheat Berry bread. I figured it was healthier. After doing a bit of researched, I learned that my favorite “healthy” bread still used enriched flour and was high in sugars. Honey Wheat Bread still is high in sugars, but not as bad as the berry variety. It uses whole wheat flour, not the enriched flour, so it’s supposedly better for you.
2. Skippy Creamy Natural Peanut Butter with Honey – Okay, I was amazed by this, it only has 5 ingredients and I can pronounce them all!
3. Oregon Marionberry Seedless Preserves – Normally, I’m a Smuckers Red Raspberry Seedless Jam girl. I decided to compare the labels and discovered that one jam had high fructose corn syrup and one didn’t. I decided on the marionberry because it has fewer ingredients and healthier ones.
4. Honey Nut Cheerios – Cereal was a hard choice. I wanted to choose a cereal that only had one kind of cereal in it. No cereal and marshmallows, no cereal and clusters. Just cereal. I did a lot of research on healthy cereals. While, Honey Nut Cheerios isn’t the best. I was surprised to find that it had fewer sugars than some “healthier” cereals. This might not be the best choice out there, but it’s better than Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms (two of my favorite cereals).
5. Skim Milk – I only use milk for cereal, washing down a piece of chocolate cake, or making my cheese sauce in my mac & cheese. Since I chose cereal, milk was a needed item.
6. Light String Cheese – This is the only item that was on my frequent list above. It offers the same nutrients as a glass of milk (according a website I was looking at). It also is pre-packaged for easy snacking. I needed something I didn’t have to “make” (I totally realize that none of my foods involve me cooking in any way, shape, or form).
7. Diet Cherry Pepsi – This last item was the hardest. I started to debate giving up Diet Pepsi so I could have another food, but after a day of giving up soda as a test, I decided against it. Caffeine withdrawal headaches are not on my list of things to do next week. I’m addicted to Diet Pepsi. I guess my intervention will have to happen after next week. I decided to go with the cherry flavor to add more sweetness to my diet. Oh yes, I did!

This is going to be a hard week to do the fast because I have a baby shower and a wedding I’m attending. I tried to talk Jeremy into the logic that cake is the same as bread. If I got rid of the frosting, it would be okay. The dictionary didn’t back me up in this regard. Cake ≠ bread. I guess pancakes and waffles don’t fall under that “bread” category either.  I will be packing five sack lunches/dinners this week and taking my own meal instead of eating something provided by others or going out. Hopefully, the need to bring my own meal and offering no snack to my Wednesday class will remind me how blessed I am with a full pantry and a full fridge. I have never gone hungry. I don’t know what it is like to wonder where my next meal will come from. Even though I will still have 7 very Americanized food, I’m praying the limitations will continue to open my eyes, just as the last two weeks have done. I am looking forward in anticipation for that God has in store. Bon Appétit!