Day 76: I'm Here To Tell You Honey That I'm Bad To The Bone

INDULGENCE DAY!

For my third and final indulgence, I decided to run an experiment. What would happen if I returned to my old ways after completing the Peak Condition Project? It had to occur on a specific night at a specific restaurant with specific people. Tonight all the planets were aligned. It was showtime.

The reason I wanted to run this experiment was because I had been very good with my eating habits while on this program—extremely few slip-ups and absolutely no cheating. Even my past two indulgences weren't even that naughty. So for one night I was going to allow myself to be a rebel and be really bad.

Thursday night is when my medieval group gets together for meetings. Typically, a small group of us will go out to dinner afterwards. Since our meetings run until 9pm, that means that we don't get to a restaurant until 9:15. Our orders are placed by about 9:30pm, and the food usually doesn't arrive until 10pm. That means we're usually not home until after 11pm. This was my life before PCP.

The second component was the company I kept. Not a healthy eater in the bunch and every single one of them a night owl. These are the people I had been mostly avoiding during this whole program. Oh, I'd see them here and there, but I had stopped going out with them.

The third component was to have a typical meal that I enjoyed before taking part of PCP. Here is a picture of my typical Pre-PCP Late Night Thursday meal:

That, my dear readers, is a Zebbs Very Veggie Burger with onions, melted cheddar cheese, bleu cheese, and guacamole with a side of fries.

Now you have to remember that this was eaten late at night. That means that we would typically not have anything to eat in the hours prior. For most of us, that meant our last meal was lunch. That right. By the time I sat down to eat this bad boy, it would have probably been about nine hours since I had something in my stomach.

I wasn't going to go that far in this experiment, but I tried to get as close as possible. That day I had my PCP afternoon snack around 4pm, then went home and did my strength exercises. Immediately afterward I went to the meeting and waited for "dinner time".

First thing that I noticed was that I was extremely hungry by the time we went to the restaurant. Since I never was that hungry prior to PCP, that could mean only one thing—I had been mindlessly snacking beforehand and not even realizing what I was putting in my stomach. Pre-PCP life: Strike One!

The veggie burger tasted about the same as I remembered before—which is to say that I don't remember the flavor whatsoever. At 10pm at night, a person who is ravenously hungry can make that bad boy disappear in the blink of an eye. There was no enjoyment of the flavors, just a blind need to get food into the stomach. This doesn't happen if you supply your body with food throughout the day like we do on PCP. Pre-PCP life: Strike Two!

The fries were a whole other experience. I managed to choke down a few of them before the grease got to me and I had to pawn them off on someone else. I couldn't do it. They were just dripping with oil. A few minutes later I began clearing my throat. Ah yes. I remember that sensation from life before PCP. That cloying feeling in the esophagus that took hours of "ahem-ing" to get rid of, and which usually left my throat feeling raw. Pre-PCP life: Strike Three!

But the best was yet to come! Pre-PCP life always came complete with dessert!

The Chocolate-Mint Mudpie! This picture really does not do it justice. That dessert is friggin' huge!

I had a few spoonfuls of it before I had to call it quits. It was good, but I really could not go beyond the initial flavor burst. So I then proclaimed open season on it. My friends dove right in—and even that feeding frenzy couldn't polish off this dessert. In the end, about a quarter of it was left to be thrown away. Pre-PCP life: YER OUT!

I had some friends who thought I was crazy to spend my indulgence this way. Their ideas of an indulgence tended more towards classier restaurants and meals that were pretty healthy. I didn't want to do that. I have a whole life of healthier meals ahead of me. I wanted to really see how much I had changed (if any) since being on the program. Call it a farewell meal to my previous self. One final night to be truly wicked.