My So-Called Life after Fried Chicken

 

 

In 1972 I gave up cigarettes, which I had been smoking since the fall of 1962 when I entered college at 17 and *needed* to appear more grown up. I never even smoked an entire pack a day, but quitting for my three-year-old proved to be very tough for a while. Morning coffee, after dinner and barstools remained a problem for years, which is why I developed my habit of chewing swizzle sticks. One for one swap.

Playing tennis was my life for the entire decade of my thirties. Pre-dawn practices and weekend tournaments required me to squeeze my paid work into the times in between, while continuing my obsession with being the world’s most conscientious single mom, until I remarried when I was 33. Then I played tennis with my equally-driven husband. When degenerative disk disease put an end to my fantasies about becoming Martina Navratilova (we are both lefties), I put my purists’ wooden racquet in its press for good and took up pain pills.

When shooting, searing pains in my breasts from the lightest brushes of fabrics and other lightweight stimuli convinced me I had breast cancer or cancer of the milk ducts, I was relieved to be told by my doctor it was neither, but something about the nerves in my dense breast tissue. She recommended I avoid caffeine and chocolate, which both exacerbate the condition. Quit coffee, colas AND chocolate?! She might as well have been telling me to quit breathing, those things were so much a part of my life. But quit them I did – eventually – and replaced them with non-caffeinated Diet Coke. Like a fiend.i

I was in my fifties by then, and giving up things I really enjoyed was starting to get pretty old. It would be slightly inaccurate to say here that I actually *gave up* sex by then, but for all intents and purposes, I had. My relationship fatigue, which didn’t feel all that much like giving something good up, caused me to take a breather from that madness. No sex, or insanely infrequent sex, was a side effect of that decision that bothered me far less often than I would have expected.

Last summer I was faced with that ages-old dilemma of a college reunion. I had avoided looking at photos of myself and I had tried to focus my gaze on my head when passing a reflective window or mirror for the years following the severe injury of my foot in 2006. The physical activity levels since then had diminished because the foot has never completely healed and the matronly poundage inched its way on while I rationalized about how *healthy* my diet was. It actually was, for the most part, but I had a system by which I allowed myself to indulge my passion for fried chicken.

Every trip I made to my local Publix supermarket triggered bargaining sessions within myself so that I could exit that store with some quantity and version of their deli’s deep fried, heavily seasoned and breaded chicken wings. I have loved chicken wings since I was a small child who was never allowed the privilege of selecting a breast, which was saved for the adults at the table. Since I naturally disliked the oilier, darker meat of fowl, my only choice was the wing.

When I became more conscious of nutrition and weight management, I realized the meat of the breast was far less fattening than even the wing meat, so I switched. I was thrilled because of the larger expanse of crispy skin on the breast and I chose to ignore the inherent fallacy of that swap. As soon as I left my car, the aroma of frying chicken would waft out through the ventilation system to the Publix parking lot. I was powerless to resist it.

When I “called Jenny” Craig in March 2010, I had to kiss fried chicken goodbye. There is not a weight-loss program on earth, with the possible exception of the cockamamie Atkins Diet, that includes fried chicken on its menu. After a withdrawal period that I am convinced rivaled that of coming off a heroin habit, I learned to “enjoy” skinless chicken breasts, cut in half to make 3-ounce servings, seasoned only with Mrs. Dash. It was then that I also recognized my addiction to salt, because without it, all foods tasted the same for several weeks: awful.

I lost the weight I wanted to lose in time for the reunion and I felt quite happy with myself. In the 14 months since the reunion, I have managed to keep that weight off by continuing to eat the way I did when I was on Jenny Craig; i.e., small portions, lots of whole fruits and vegetables, non-fat milk, yogurt, and sour cream, sugar-free everything, and NO FRIED CHICKEN.

Now I would love to tell you I’m over my love affair with fried chicken, but that would be the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I still crave it. I sometimes dream about it. The aroma still causes excess saliva to flood my mouth. Others say things like “Surely, you can have one piece of chicken, Lezlie.” Just like my grandpa’s cronies did the first time he dried out and went on the wagon. But I learned all things great and good from my grandpa, and I know when I am whipped. There will be no fried chicken for me, ever again, or I will be powerless once again.

What, you ask, is my substitute passion now? Rainier cherries.