Day 1. A whole lot of fail. Today, for breakfast, I found a small whole-grain roll on my desk, left over from something I’m sure. I ate it with a pat of butter. It was delicious, but probably processed. Fail #1. Because the construction folks were there spraying fire-proofing or whatnot, I left to go home in peace and quiet. That rescued lunch, which turned into 3 fried eggs and a bowl of green-bean bacon (very delicious). I cheated a little, though, and had some crispy onion / hot chili oil on top of the eggs. Fail #2. I avoided most temptations during the day while I worked, but when Christina dropped me off at Phil’s, I realized I had no cash. That led to a solid half an hour of hungry wandering. All the places I knew that served “less” processed food were closed (Menlo Cafe), semi-burnt down (Main St. Bagel), or out of my price range/dress code (Left Bank). That left two options: Su Hong and Uno Mas! I chose Su Hong, but after seeing some of the food coming out of the to-go facade, I turned around and went to Uno Mas! (after passing a homeless man nibbling on a box of crackers). There I got some tacos, rice, and beans, with semi-fresh salsa and fixings. My guess is that the tortillas on the tacos were not homemade. Fail #3. Then, after eating that, I had such a sugar craving that I walked to Trader Joe’s and, in a moment of weakness, bought a box of strawberry mochi. Then, in a moment of strength, I got home and just put it in the fridge. Then, in a moment of silliness, I ate some random cake-like thing our neighbor had given us. Processed? Well, it contained Heath bars. Fail #4.

Fail #5 came at 1:40AM when I was sitting in the cell phone waiting area of SFO to pick up Jamie, whose flight was very very very late. I was tired, having downed the lukewarm remainder of my morning joe. So, in a moment of desperation, I fished through my pockets for exactly $1.50 of change and bought a Diet Iced Tea to stay awake. Out of misery I refused to read the labels.

Lessons of the day? The first, and biggest, is that lack of preparation is the enemy. During all my failures I got caught off guard by the presentation of easy (and processed) food. Had I prepared food ahead of time, or had time to prepare food (both of which happened at lunch), I would have been far less tempted. But wandering downtown Menlo Park like a starving college student led to thoughts of “me eat food quick now” rather than thinking of how many ingredients there were. Tomorrow, hopefully, will be less filled with fail.

Also, tomorrow I will tell you about the comically bad infomercial I saw at Uno Mas! And I’m not shouting, it’s just the name of the place comes with an exclamation mark.