Smokey Chipotle Turkey Sub

So I debated whether this (my favorite) smokey chipotle turkey sub, a seemingly basic lunch-time sandwich—- deserves to be on a food blog. Probably not… so it’s a good thing this is just a wanna-be-food-blog!  But I posted a video of making it yesterday on my instagram… which was just kind of a tease since it’s too fast to really follow… so here it is. The thing I look forward to all morning, the reason I stop at the store almost every other day (hooked on fresh deli-meat)…. my every-day smokey chipotle turkey sub.

 

 

This is so much MORE than just a sandwich to me.  And I don’t wax poetic often because it makes me feel so cheesy cheesy — but hear me out.

 

Before I found macro counting, I didn’t have a big weight problem or an eating disorder (unless you want to put a label on my dessert obsession but whatever).  I was, however, like most women, always wanting to look and feel better, and always feeling so many highs and lows with food. It consumed the forefront of my mind and the top of my New Years’ resolutions and brought a silly amount of guilt and frustration.  Because I could always be eating better, and cleaner, and less. LESS!  And of course carbs, bread especially… WHITE FLUFFY ROLLS most specifically— were the first thing that should go.  They obviously only existed to tempt us right out of our happy-sized J-Crew pencil skirts.

 

 

Until I was mad at my food because as much as I love eggs… eventually the flame fizzles when they’re never paired with toast… what good is a yolk if it can’t be soaked up by GLUTEN??  Or I just wanted to wrap my hands and teeth around a fully intact burger or sandwich with all of the texture and stop pretending “I don’t even miss it! It’s just the same!” That’s just a salad in your hands.  I’ll eat my salad —when I want a salad, with a fork please.

 

I just like food how it’s supposed to be, and I really like food.  So eventually I’d be like, it’s not worth it, life’s too short.  I deserve this.  And those 8 ounces I lost in a week would come back after a bite of my kid’s morning toast and it was all of that emotion and deprivation for nothing.

And THIS is where macro counting has been revolutionary.  After as little as a week or two of tracking and logging my food and seeing the macro break down of each meal, I realized where things would ring in on my “macro budget” and how doable it was to fit some of the carbs I loved, if I just made good choices by skipping the ones I didn’t.  I would eat my sad, naked eggs (let’s be real- whites at that point) and lettuce-wrapped turkey during the day and find I had carbs leftover to play with at night… even more than I needed. So slowly I added in a sandwich-thin or an english muffin or those tiny square slices of 45-calorie bread that look like they’re made for dolls.  And I remember one day being like, wait a minute I could eat this sandwich-thin that almost tastes like bread for 22 carbs… OR OR OR…. for 10 more carbs I could make this GIANT SANDWICH on a light and fluffy beautiful bolillo roll (with the help of hollowing out that top bun of course) that makes me feel like I could take on the world and should for SURE be gaining weight BUT I’M NOT.

I felt like a cheater.  And a winner.  And just overall a ROCK STAR.  A rock star with a full happy belly.  And all I had to give up was a ten-carb rice cake I was eating in the afternoon (because I saw those all over Instagram so obviously it’s what I was supposed to eat.)

Ha.

And that’s the thing. If bread does nothing for you, YAY… don’t touch it and you save all those carbs for sweet potatoes or fruit or just MORE veggies…or RICE CAKES!  We probably don’t have a bright future as friends because I don’t get you…  but eat whatever makes you feel like you’re WINNING.  Because that’s the feeling that makes this thing sustainable.  And what’s the point if it’s not sustainable?

I know there are more nutrient dense carbs I could choose instead of bread but I get plenty of those in the course of the day and this is a form of balance that’s helped me reach a few new fitness goals AND MAINTAIN them.  Because the bottom line is that it’s true:  it’s not worth it if you’re miserable, life IS too short, and you DO deserve to love what you eat.   That’s the only way you’ll actually legitimately be consistent — like forever. And I want to feel good and in control, auto pilot control— so that the forefront of my mind can be freed up for more important things like my family…  and so that my new years resolutions can move beyond tackling my belly rolls.

Now go make yourself a sandwich.