Sushi epiphany

We have a Toyota engine plant on the north end of town. Beyond its positive effect on the local economy, I’ve never found this particularly remarkable. As much as I love cars, I’m as shallow as can be on this. I’m impressed with plants from which finished vehicles emerge (and Alabamians produce the Honda Odyssey in Lincoln, the Mercedes-Benz M-Class in Tuscaloosa, and the Hyundai Sonata in Montgomery). If you have one of those, we probably built it right here in the Heart of Dixie.

Nevertheless, one great thing about the plant is an outstanding Japanese restaurant that essentially came with it. A Toyota muckety-muck or two paid for a sushi chef they knew in Japan and his family to move here and open Mikawa. I’m eating there about as often as I can afford, which is two or three times a month. (At a good sushi place, I might as well just toss ’em my wallet when I walk in the door.)

I had lunch there today with my buds Cheri and Cheryl (I always seem to wind up the only guy at a table of gorgeous women at Mikawa; yay me). I had spicy California roll, Mikawa rainbow roll, nigiri salmon, and nigiri whitefish. I craved it before I went, I loved eating it, and I was full until dinnertime.

All of that’s important, because I’ve got to do something significant and sustained about my weight. I haven’t liked the way I look in several years, but now it’s gotten to the point that I can’t do something as natural as running around on a soccer field with my son for ten minutes without getting completely wiped out.

Well, that just sucks, folks.

I’ve been down this road before. I’ve gotten as far as 40% to my weight loss goal and eventually lost all of my progress. So I’m trying to plan a lot more extensively this time before I attempt another wholesale change in my eating habits. I’m not only keeping a list of healthy foods, but a separate list of healthy things I like enough to crave, such as the above described sushi lunch. I like that just as much as I do a bacon cheeseburger and bleu cheese lettuce wedge at Lone Star, and the fat and caloric impact of the former is nearly negligible compared to the latter.

I tried in the past to eliminate altogether the idea of “craving” food. I can make some big changes fairly effortlessly (for example, it always surprises me a little how easy it is for me to drop fast food entirely when I just think about doing so every day). But inevitably, when I’ve slipped back into my old bad habits, it’s always been kicked off by overindulging at a splurge meal. So this time I’m trying to make a “go to” list for cravings that’s just as sustainable and sensible as day-to-day good habits. Sushi’s on it. Several dishes at the Vietnamese place are on it. Skim milk is on it. Bananas are on it. Boca burgers are on it. Roast turkey is on it. V8 juice, of all things, is on it. I love that stuff.

I haven’t yet started my latest effort to permanently alter my eating habits, so I don’t yet know whether this is the extra weapon that will get me where I want to be. But based on all I’ve learned about how and why I fall off the wagon, it might be just what I need. I’ll keep you posted. I doubt that you’ll find such particularly interesting, but I could use the accountability.

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