Skip to main content

Foiled

Even when I'm not being particularly healthy, diet is usually the last of my worries. The Mild Wife and I meal prep our food, so I more or less know in advance what I'm going to eat. That makes it easier to portion out the meal, as well as to plan out the content of said meal. It takes no real willpower to simply eat what's in the Tupperware, and if you make sure that the contents of the Tupperware are relatively healthy, you're basically set.

It's also worth noting that the Mild Wife and I try to keep the vegetable content in our meals steady, if not high. I mean, "vegetable forward" is a thing in our household. Trips to the grocery store pretty much always involve going through the produce section, so we're no strangers to cooking with greens.

However, the exception to this, at least in my case, seems to be when I travel. There are no Tupperware portions then, so my food tends to lean more towards the unhealthy end of the scale. Generally speaking, eating out leads to more calories and less nutritional content, and traveling tends to mean eating out more often. Heck, even when it's well-intentioned, you can ending up indulging a tad more than you'd expected (if you're not familiar with the free champagne we got during the Mild Honeymoon, that's worth a chuckle).

So, when I was on a business trip recently, I tried to be a bit more mindful of my diet. I still had to go out for dinner, but I could usually control lunch and snacks a bit more. I intentionally avoided eating too much during lunch, and I bypassed the sweets that were often out as an afternoon snack. Along those lines, I also tried to limit the intake of coffee and soda. I figured that if I drank more water, it would help balance things out a bit.

By about the second or third day, I had a routine down. After lunch, grab a water bottle or sparkling water thing to help limit any extra sugar or caffeine intake. Ultimately, that led to me drinking one of these:
It's called "Fresca" so it must be good for you
When I tasted it, I realized that there was flavoring in it. Well, that wasn't quite what I expected, but I've definitely had flavored waters before. Curious, I took a closer look at the can. That's when I discovered that this can was actually "flavored soda" (link). In fact, here's what that can looks like without my hand in the way:
Courtesy of the Target website

Yup it says "soda" right on the can. Now, it's written in small enough writing that you might miss it, but it's there. I can't help but think that this was a very intentional marketing ploy. I mean, look at the can. It's got all that blue in it, and the design looks like waves for crying out loud. If someone wanted to evoke the image of water, they're doing a good job of it.

So, to conclude, I tried to be healthy by drinking more water and less sugary drinks. Instead, I ended up drinking soda water because the can practically lied to me. I was foiled by the marketing department. Foiled, I say.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...

Where Do I Go?

As the days of COVID-19 are dragging on, we are having to make more adjustments to our usual routines. Some of these changes are so mundane that I haven't mentioned them at all in this blog, while others have lead to some pretty funny anecdotes . That's probably par for the course, since you wouldn't expect a global pandemic to be all giggles. As it turns out, however, not all of the anecdotes happen to us directly. Having to socially distance and remotely do things has actually led to at least one goofy episode that we found out from afar. You see, it was our niece's birthday recently, but we couldn't visit her because of the aforementioned social distancing. So, we figured we'd ship her a present and call her on her birthday. We couldn't be there in person, but we could still wish her well and try to make her feel special on her birthday. Given that shipping times have been erratic the last few months, we ordered the present with plenty of time, and it arr...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...