I have discovered the hardest part of going fast food free is my workday. That’s when the temptation to buy fast food is at its highest. My workplace is directly across from a Carl’s Junior, and that  star smirks at me every day. I can practically hear the smarmy bastard saying “Come on innnn. I know how much you love your Western bacon cheeseburger and fries. They’re right here! They’re the bestttt.”

Shut up, you. Shut up shut up.

My problems have been twofold and I must attack them thusly. I work far away from where I live and I am terrible at cooking. Working far away means I normally get up at, oh, roughly 4am to fight traffic and be at work before my start time of 7am. I don’t get home until about 7:30pm most nights, so I spend a lot of time away from home on my work days. It was a situation that has definitely bred a taste for fast food. A nice morning breakfast at Starbucks or McDonald’s, a lunch at Chipotle maybe (I’m being healthy! :D! Right.) , and  a cheeseburger to munch on in traffic at the BK right before my on-ramp. Not only is this terrible for my body, but it’s expensive as shit!

I didn’t even want to look at how much I was spending on fast food a day, let alone a week. Ouch. I didn’t eat EVERY meal out, but I ate enough of them out. I was spending a lot, it’s safe to say.

My second problem is that I am terrible at cooking. Why? Because I haven’t done a lot of it. Cooking unnerves me still, though I will work through that with more practice. Following the recipe is all well and good, but every cooking experience is still fraught with a little bit of tension for me because I don’t know what I’m doing just at all. Even following exact instructions in the recipe, I’m still pretty unskilled at most basic cooking things. Chopping, sauteing, knowing when something’s thoroughly done versus when it’s burning. Not knowing enough things intuitively to know when I should fix or adjust something to taste. The idea that if I mess up, I’m wasting money AND food. The not knowing, the feeling of being a neophyte, is the worst feeling for me. However, it won’t go away if I don’t practice. So I’m trying to force myself to practice.

I decided to take the plunge and get an Instant Pot, because I’d heard so many good things about them. So I’ve got that, and I plan to use it often. I’ve already made my first meal in it! It was super easy, vegetarian tortilla soup, which took me so very little time! One of my goals is to make two new recipes a month, and I’ve already got the second one lined up! I don’t feel as petrified cooking as I used to, but I won’t lie, the fear is still there. The hesitation is still there. Now, though, so is the desire to do it, especially knowing if I make a meal that lasts for days, my work lunch woes are over!

That knocks out cooking practice AND my work problem. I was making excuses before, I have to tell myself now that I’m fresh out of those. There are so many things I can make, simple easy things that will result in me not having to jaunt out somewhere easy to pick up food. I know that soon the enthusiasm will wane, and I will have to rely on my discipline to get me through, and me saying to myself “You haven’t had fast food in a little over two weeks. You really want to start now? Really?”

No, no I don’t. That shitty star can go shoot off somewhere else.