When I saw this chart, I just had to laugh because IT’S TRUE!! I have had many such revelations in my life. Like the time when my husband (then my 20-year-old boyfriend) and I were walking through the grocery store and he looked up at the immense aisle of cereal and said, “I can buy whatever cereal I want!” It was then that we realized that adulthood was awesome. It was 10 pounds later that we realized that adulthood had its responsibilities. And that maybe Cookie Crisp was not as good as it had always looked on the commercials.
These days we try our best to temper our love of pork products, Coco Puffs and ice cream with healthy doses of fresh veggies. Many nights the worse the entree (I’m looking at you, baby back ribs) the larger the salad. But here’s the thing: We can only pull off this kind of resolve when we’re together. My husband works out of town a lot, and I’m here to tell you that my first meal of his absence nearly always involves large doses of pasta, bacon and cheese…and no vegetables whatsoever. Last week I worked a lot of late nights, and I’m pretty sure he ate nothing but boxed mac’n’cheese. Sure, I still make myself salads when he’s gone, but are they topped with fresh bacon crumbles and avocado? Take a guess.
So we’ll continue this battle for the rest of our days, balancing the things we love with the things our bodies need; the responsibility of a mature couple with the indulgence of unseen guilty pleasures. And we’ll still take pleasure in knowing that we CAN indulge in whatever we want, as long as we do it in moderation. And as my husband said recently to a crying child in the cereal aisle, “Don’t worry kid. When you grow up you can buy all the Froot Loops you want.”
