The Fat Matrix has you

I remember the day I told a friend of mine that a glazed donut has around 220 calories. Her face went from smiling to a look of startled disbelief. It shattered her world, the poor thing.

I also remember a time when I, myself, was blissfully ignorant about the foods I was eating. A pint of ice cream is so small...it can't be more than 500 calories. Fried chicken has lots of protein, so it's good for my muscles. Brie has calcium.

Give me a break.

On May 1, 2007, I was reborn into a new world. In the movie The Matrix, Neo is ripped from his lifelong sleep into what seems like hell. The things he once loved to do, eat, see, and smell were all gone. That's kind of how I felt when I started losing weight. That's when I learned a pint of Ben & Jerry's would set me back about 1500 calories. Fried chicken, to my dismay, was really bad for you. Brie was, in fact, glorified butter with a moldy rind. It was a sad, sad time.

As I phased out those old favorites, however, I learned to appreciate and even like some foods I once shunned. Egg substitute had once been a scary, viscous liquid that came in a carton. Now I eat it almost daily. Sugar free fudge pops may not be as numbing as a pint of Haagen Daaz, but they're surprisingly creamy and delicious. Apparently, chicken can be cooked on a device called a grill, rather than a vat of bubbling lard. And, it even tastes good. Who knew?

Sometimes I wish I could be ignorant again. I may have been obese, but I didn't worry about calories, fat grams, and trans fats. I just ate. Of course, things got grossly out of hand, and I, like Neo, was reborn. There's no going back now. I may have gained some weight back recently, but this time I know exactly what I'm doing to myself. That's why I knew my behavior had to stop. I'm 5 days clean now, and feeling better every day.

Now I just have to learn how to stop time and bend reality.