French Fry Day

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• March 3, 2014

March 1st, French Fry Day.

This is my own personal holiday.  I made it up.  It’s the one day a year I eat french fries.  This is why.  And it starts with soda.

There was once a time I drank soda all the time.  In the morning, for energy. In the afternoon, for thirst.  In the evening, for taste.  And in between.  I fucking loved soda.  I especially loved Mountain Dew.  That was my crack.  I became hyper as hell with some Mountain Dew in me.

It’s not easy for propaganda to influence me.  When I saw those vegetarian brain-washing films, I ate bacon an hour later.  When I saw Super Size Me, I ate McDonalds for dinner.  But when I saw that soda could dissolve a tooth (not overnight, that’s myth, but yes, over time, it can) it really grossed me out.  I have a thing about oral hygiene.  I was out.  Soda, no more.  What I found was, after some time away from soda, I didn’t like drinking it.  It was too sweet, hurt my teeth, and was not refreshing or thirst quenching at all.  I stopped drinking soda after that, because I didn’t like it.

That’s when I wondered if the same could be applied towards other things.  I then gave up chips, which was relatively easy, because I’m not a chips fan anyway.  Once you start, you eat the whole bag, but if you don’t eat one, it was easy.

How far can I go with this? I loved french fries.  Scratch that, I still love french fries.  But they have no nutritional value.  So I tried to stop eating french fries.  I failed.  I tried again.  And failed.  I tried a third time, and failed.  So I gave up.

Then I went to Spain, and in Spain I didn’t eat any french fries (not intentionally, that’s just what happened).  When I got back, another couple weeks passed, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten french fries for a month.  This was probably the longest I’d gone without eating french fries since I was a toddler.  So I decided to keep going.  A whole year, no french fries.  A year passed, and it was a success.  Then, on that first French Fry Day, I decided to keep it going.

Why?

Well… that’s where it gets a little more complicated.

I’m a bit of a control obsessed person.  Because I’m an anxiety ridden, panic attack type of person.  The thing about panic attacks that I really fucking hate, is it is this moment where you lose yourself.  You have no control at all.  I can sort of steer my panic attacks or “put them off,” but they will come, and they will go.  When your fear is that you can’t control yourself, you become obsessed with control.  And one of the simplest things you can do is control what you put in your body.

There’s a second reason, and that’s discipline.  I want to be really successful, and one of the traits of really successful people is not only are they smart and hard working, but they are very, very self disciplined.

So, French Fry Day, on the surface, is the one day a year I eat french fries.  But, it’s also a celebration of control and discipline.  If you think this makes me insane… you have no idea.