Stuck on You

I have something of an obsessive personality.

When I like a song, I want to hear it over and over and over again and it goes on every single playlist and/or CD I make. When I get new clothes or shoes or a bag, I want to wear them immediately, and sometimes think of ways to wear an item multiple times in a week.

Where it's always been most clear is my tendency to get "stuck" on certain foods. My senior year of college, I had rice Chex for breakfast every.single.day for six or seven months straight. My first year here at the firm, I discovered Gia Pronto and ordered the same exact salad (identical ingredients, no variation at all) every day for lunch from February through September or so -- and the only reason that broke off was because I took two and a half weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon.

The P90X nutrition plan really plays to these tendencies of mine. There are a couple of ways to approach the plan -- detailed meal plans with recipes vs. a "portion" version, where you can eat whatever so long as it fits into the prescribed outline. This is what I've been doing -- I get five "portions" of protein, two of veggies, one fruit, two dairy, one carb, one condiment and one fat, plus a protein bar (they "prescribe" the Beachbody/P90X brand, but Clif Builder's bars have about the same makeup, a better ingredients list and (bonus) are actually sold in stores near me). It took some getting used to, but it's been working fabulously for me.

I've been keeping a notebook to track my eating, mainly to keep tabs on what I've eaten for the day, what I have left and where I need to catch up. And, unsurprisingly, I've found myself eating nearly identically every single day. Breakfast? Berries (about 1.25 cups of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and/or blackberries -- whatever's on sale), Fage 0 and iced coffee. Midmorning I have my bar. Lunch is almost always a salad -- I've been leaning towards the Mediterranean salad from Jake & Max's in the Comcast center, with crabmeat, shrimp, red peppers, artichokes and capers. In the afternoon, I have another yogurt (either Fage 0 or plain Chobani, whatever DiBruno's has in stock) with an ounce of dried fruit. Dinner is either two sandwiches (arnold's thin and a bunch of turkey), if I'm lazy, or grilled something (chicken, pork, fish) and a sweet potato with hot sauce and plain greek yogurt. If I'm craving something sweet, I'll have half of a bar. And then the next day...exactly the same thing.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Looking back over the past three weeks, my notebook is full of identical pages. Sometimes, I'll go crazy and switch things up -- have a sandwich (turkey on wheat with mustard, sweet peppers, lettuce and tomato) for lunch and save my veggies for dinner, so I can have a big salad then. But I really had to laugh when I saw this. Not like I'm surprised!

Are you a creature of habit?