The Sixth Food Pyramid, Part 1. Resolution #10

The Midwest had best warm up soon, or I will be forced to eat myself into Type 6 Diabetes.  Type 6 Diabetes, a lesser-known form of the disease, happens when you leave the traditional five food groups and exist solely on the Sixth Food Group Pyramid, which looks like this: 

I revert to the pyramid when I am cold and uncomfortable, having a bad day, or am celebrating something.  So kind of all the time.  Let me explain how the pyramid works.  Today is Part One in a three part series.

At the top of the pyramid is Starbucks.  

I didn't drink coffee until I birthed Oldest Daughter.  While the other fully Cliniqued and accessorized moms gazed lovingly at their clean, Gymboreed children at the park, I would walk around in a sleep-deprived haze in mismatched, nasty outfits and call my daughter by the wrong name.

"My baby slept through the night at 8 weeks!" they would chime.

My baby was two before she would sleep for more than four hours at a time.  This made me verrrry sleeeepy.  Incoherent, really.  And it was hard to get myself put together for public consumption.  I could barely get it together to make it to my full-time job, so on evenings or weekends, fuggetaboudit.  For me, one sleep-deprived Saturday morning stands out in excruciating detail.

I was at the park with a few other moms who dressed down a bit and wore baseball caps to make me feel good, and from across the park someone yelled "Julie!?! Is that YOU?" 

I looked up from my group to see this gorgeous woman walking across the park with her baby.  She had chin-length highlighted hair, parted on the side, with a youthful barette holding some of it back.  She had on light, daytime makeup, but not so much to cover up the adorable sprinkling of freckles across her perky nose.  She wore cute boyfriend jeans and a t-shirt with matching cardigan.  She looked rested and fresh.  "Susan?" Oh no.  I'd responded to my name.  I missed the opportunity to get up and run like hell across the park, leaving the moms I was with to care for Oldest Daughter.  Because Susan, whom I knew from college, was the epitome of lovely, inside and out, and I was Hagartha, Queen of the Haggard Sleep Deprived Breeders.

We talked for a few minutes, both of us holding our babies, me in my stained t-shirt and I-just-had-a-baby-give-me-a-friggin-break tight khakis, and I was having a little trouble completing sentences when my baby had an explosive eruption and baby poo shot out all over my already icky outfit.  (Hand to God, this is true.)  I took a deep breath, smiled through my dark-ringed eyes, said, "It was great to see you Susan!" and marched to my car.  I strapped the squishy baby in her soon-to-be-bleached carseat, drove home, and sat in my driveway and bawled for about 20 minutes.

That night, I broke out the coffeemaker and supplies we kept on hand for when our parents would visit, I set it up for a 7 a.m. brew, and I never looked back.  I made a conscious decision to become addicted to coffee.  It was crack or shame, and at the time, I chose crack.  Did it end up making me more fashionable, get my hair highlighted or put on makeup?  No.  But I was definitely more alert and aware of the fact that I looked like crap.  I owned it, honey.

Like the leap from Nyquil to meth, the day I walked into my first coffee house, Java House in downtown Iowa City, the clouds parted and the angels wept.  Wait...do you mean I can have the coffee with chocolate?  And some kind of whipped cream on top with chocolate syrup?  The essentials of espresso with the benefits of a short but powerful sugar high?

Sign.  Me.  Up. 

Starbucks then brought my favorite sugary coffees to the masses.  Starbucks in Target, Starbucks in Hy-Vee grocery stores, Starbucks in Barnes & Noble, Starbucks in prison, Starbucks Drive-Thrus...I'm waiting for someone to punch a hole in my bedroom wall and tell me they are building a Starbucks in my yard with bedside delivery.

Herein lies the rub - my favorite beverage at the time was the White Chocolate Mocha, with whip.  Venti, of course.  Just listen to the description...

"A delicious variation of the classic mocha. Rich, full-bodied Starbucks® espresso is complemented with our proprietary, creamy white chocolate syrup and topped with whipped cream."

I mean, what's not to love, right?  Oh, except that this particular beverage has 580 calories in that snappy paper cup.  Now that I thought I was burning it up with my caffeine intake, I couldn't believe I was actually getting fatter.  And then when I found out I was DRINKING over a fourth of my daily recommended caloric intake, that flabby stomach was no longer a mystery.  I had developed a Mocha Top.  With Whip.

I still love Starbucks (although I prefer my friend Tommie's coffee shop, Fuel, in Mount Vernon, and her mom's homemade scones.  Dang.  I am salivating.), but now I either get the brewed coffee or a grande skinny vanilla latte.  But when the temperatures get down below 32 for protracted periods of time, I am only complete with a hot, sugary coffee in my hand.

RESOLULTION #10:  Replace coffee addiction with methamphetemine.

This would actually burn away the Mocha Top with Whip, and I could LOSE weight.  And hair.  And teeth.  And maybe my house would be clean and I would get everything on my list done for a change.  

Damn you, Starbucks.  Damn you for making me love you.