My Love Affair with Ranch Dressing: A Fat Story

Let's begin simply: I am not a skinny person.
I am not exactly a fat person.
I am a sort-of healthy person, with a passion for working out and a sincere interest in diet and nutrition.
I am about thirty pounds overweight, per the Body Mass Index (BMI).
Nearly all of my female friends are skinnier than I am. Nearly all of my female family members are skinnier than I am.
I am built like a cross between an athlete and Marilyn Monroe.
I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis (hypothyroidism) and this means my metabolic system runs like a dial-up modem.

In short, I'm an average, American woman, wearing the average American clothing size: 10/12.
To be clear, it is my dream to wear a single digit pant size and to be a healthy, fit, and attractive person all of my living days.

There's a catch though.
I am entangled in a love affair with Ranch dressing.

It began very early in life. My parents bought Hidden Valley Ranch and this was served with our salad at dinner. My mom served a garden salad with nearly every meal (which is a great thing by the way) and like every kid, my sister and I preferred the flavor of Ranch over anything we deemed weird (like Thousand Island or Raspberry Vinaigrette). We simply didn't try those. (Okay, I tried Thousand Island once on a Big Mac. The texture gives me the willies, just like sunflower seeds or mandarin oranges on a salad give me the willies.)

Later, I found myself ordering Ranch dressing when we went out to eat. Back when McDonald's served chef salads, I used to insist on those with Ranch dressing rather than a kids' meal. At the time, it annoyed my mom - those big ol' salads were expensive compared to burgers and fries - but I became hooked on the big entree salad at a young age regardless.

In high school and college - Ranch went with all raw vegetables. It's just how it was. In college, Ranch dressing became a base for my tri-color pasta salad. Post-college, my then-boyfriend inspired one of the worst Ranch offenses of all: French Fries dipped in Ranch dressing. Hot wings weren't far behind.

For thirty-some years, Ranch dressing has been a staple in my diet. I once watched an MTV reality show featuring three individuals who were dramatically overweight. In the show, there's a clip of a woman on a date and during the date, she pulls a bottle of Ranch dressing out of her purse, to use for her fries and chicken. Her date makes fun of her. She laughs. She likes it. This is how she rolls.
I remember laughing at the segment, thinking "that's not me, at least" and letting the thought pass.

Speed up to present day. I've been planted in this body frame and this pant size for damn near ten years now (save those two years when my weight ballooned up to nearly 200 pounds). Like I said, I'm not a fat person, but one thing I've noticed as I've incorporated exercise and healthier eating into my lifestyle, is that Ranch dressing seems to creep into the menu way too frequently.

According to My-Calorie-Counter.com, traditional Ranch dressing contains 146 calories per serving, 144 of them from fat. It contains 2 grams of carbohydrates (which is awesome from an Atkins perspective). It also contains 354 grams of sodium per serving.

Guess what a serving is???
Give up?

Two tablespoons.

In the past six months, I've been watching my weight and working out. I use the calorie counter to keep me in check. I've noticed how often I've had to check my calories against those found in the dressing. Let's face it. Restaurants don't serve "2 tablespoons" of dressing. They serve soup cups of dressing. You're looking at over 700 calories at this point, oftentimes nearly 1000! If you're a 2000 calorie a day dieter, you're lucky. For people like me who are supposed to stay in the 1300-1800/day range, this is a kiss of death.

Lately, I've been whining and moaning that I can't lose weight. I'm eating salad! I'm eating lean protein! I'm working out!
And I'm scarfing down Ranch dressing in a way comparable to rat with a giant wheel of cheese. Sure, I love to eat entree salads specifically the ones from Henry's on Main St., but I have to face the music, I can't destroy my efforts by ladling Ranch dressing all over my veggies.
It's made a three month plateau feel like a life sentence.

So today, I'm breaking up with Ranch. We've had a lot of great times and I'll be tempted again, I'm sure, but I've got to see if this is the blockade wrecking my efforts.
It's not that I want to be skinny; I want to be healthy.
I want to be physically fit.

A little girl called me "slender" yesterday. I beamed like crazy all afternoon because of it. I can't allow Marzetti, Hidden Valley, and Kraft ruin this for me.
For someone who doesn't eat fast food much anymore and who is that interested in a healthy frame/weight, it seems crazy to continue with this destructive relationship.

Adios, Ranch.

And as I approach this new world, one filled with more olive oil and vinaigrette, I have some other culprits to confront:

Pizza (Because, let's face it, I don't eat the healthy kind yet.)
Salty snacks (I have been known to eat nearly all Doritos at any given party. Cool Ranch anyone?)
French Fries (I am not sure I can be trusted with them near my plate.)
Nachos (My equivalent for weakness in molten, cheesy form.)

I'm a savory person at heart and Ranch was one nasty element in that equation, but that formula is breaking my stride, slowing me down, and making my goal that much more difficult to attain.
I'm hoping my friends and family can hold me accountable.

Breaking up, after all, is very hard to do.

Tardies

It has been awhile since my last post and I fully intended to write something meaningful about divorce again, but frankly, I can't write about that today. It's not on my emotional or creative radar. With that out of the way, let's discuss the topic of tardiness.

One of my biggest, most irritating peeves is adults who are habitually late to everything - meetings, work, social gatherings, appointments,...you name it. You know who they are. They're the ones we have to adjust our own clocks for. "If I tell her 7:30 pm, then she'll definitely be there by 8:00 pm," for example, or "Yeah, he's always about ten minutes late, so we should probably go ahead and order our drinks."

This, my friends, is horse shit. Now, I am not irrational about this topic. I know that things sometimes prevent us from being on time. I have been stuck in traffic having planned sufficient time to get to work or tried to leave for an appointment only to have an unannounced colleague stop in to talk about something important to our work. I have been late. What I haven't been though is HABITUALLY LATE.

So this is for all of you, TARDIES. Consider this when you're giving yourself a five-ten minute cushion or arriving thirty minutes late for an appointment.

When all is said and done, being habitually late is RUDE and it makes you look bad to others. It smacks of unreliability and instantly subtracts your maturity credits. Showing up late to everything is selfish, irresponsible, and is not a good way to be taken seriously. Let me clarify a bit. When I say "tardy," I mean, late all the time, for everything, and without remorse, reason, or excuse. Now that you have all the caveats, I'll continue.

Tardies often don't feel all that badly for being late to something. There is often little by way of reason and at times, they portray this "Well, you know how I am" attitude whenever a suspicious or disappointed glance is thrown in their direction. Tardies, to be clear, don't really care if they've kept others waiting or inconvenienced someone else. Tardies care strictly about themselves, their own timetable, and expect others to conform to this irresponsible sense of untimeliness.

A tardy would be late to his own funeral causing the mortician incredible grief, not to mention his friends and family.
I jest not.

In grade school, tardies were given detention or write-ups for their lateness. There were consequences. How that didn't transition to adulthood, I don't know. Maybe they had poor role models who were late to everything. Maybe they simply have an aversion to scheduling, but what Tardies don't understand is that there are real consequences to their routine, unprofessional behavior.

1. Tardies make everyone else wait. This is blatant disrespect. Your friends, family, loved ones, coworkers, etc. have made time to make you a priority and you keep them waiting on you. You expect them to adjust and relax about it, but in actuality, you've messed with their schedules, their patience, and their sense of time management so they can get their goals completed that day. Your lateness is rude, inconsiderate, and well, tardy. All you're saying with your actions is that you care more about you and much, much less about others.

2. You are unreliable. You can't prove that you can show up on time, so what would compel an employer to hire you? If a manager cannot rely on your showing up on time to do your job, what does that mean for his/her company or department? Tardiness can cost you money and respect.

3. You look stupid and disorganized. People who are always late are considered more childish and more incapable of responsibility. More and more people will avoid giving you responsibilities or asking you to do things. You will exist without much professional or social credit. You're a lark - a disorganized person who can't be trusted with what's important.

4. You let people down. Show up late to your child's program or a friend's wedding? Show up late to a date or a meeting? Putting your unwillingness to plan ahead and refusal to schedule wisely shows you simply don't care about the team here. This can result in loss of relationships - unions important for social balance and comfort. Who wants to be there for you when you won't be there for someone else?

5. Being a tardy, as mentioned before, is selfish. Selfish people don't make friends and they're not great role models. You're the paramount of "what not to do" as it relates to everything and eventually, people will stop calling, stop asking, and stop adjusting. Being a tardy can result in loneliness.

And this is what I don't understand. Perhaps I am naive to think that is a very important characteristic in adults, but I've found that more often than not, people who are late to everything are widely unpopular, unfocused, immature, and typically the last one to arrive and the first one to leave. There's an exception to every rule, but to date, I haven't found it.

Even if your friends and family make jokes about your always being late, this isn't a good thing; it's their way of coping until one day they can't take it anymore. Eventually, tardies are going to miss something important and it's going to hurt more people than ever intended. I have yet to hear someone I know (who is a Tardy) give me a reason (a valuable reason) for always being late. Here are some excuses though:

"You know me. I'm always late." (F-Off.)

"I'm running behind." (So, you still set your alarm as late as possible? How about setting it for ten minutes earlier. Just in case?)

"I've just been so busy, ya know." (Really?! As in, my time isn't valuable and I'm not? Again, F-Off.)

"I was on the phone." (If you can't multitask or prioritize by now, I don't wanna connect with you all that much.)

"Thanks for waiting." (You're assuming I did it willingly.)

Growing up, I lived in a family who was perpetually early to everything. I still do this. It's not really a great way to go either, but it's far less disrespectful than being late. If anything, I've grown comfy sitting in my running car for ten minutes before going in for an appointment.

And life does happen to people. Cars break down. Kids throw fits and wrench up even the best laid plans. People get sick. People oversleep. Traffic is nightmarish. I know, I've been there. Being late once and awhile isn't a problem. It happens. But being that guy/woman who is ALWAYS behind schedule, always tardy, is inexcusable to me. It's downright rude.

I know I sound self-righteous and I don't mean to. Not really. I recognize that though I'm always on time, I need to relax my sense of right/wrong. I get that. But it seems as if in this day it's more commonplace and "accepted universally" that people can be late. With all of our technology for scheduling and multitasking, if anything, we should be ahead of schedule, if not, at least, on time.

*end rant*