I Ate Like a Preteen for a Week
It was awesome…until it wasn’t.
As a kid, I was raised on DiGiorno pizzas, Easy Mac, and Pop-Tarts (sorry for outing you, mom). But as a little nugget with a crazy-fast metabolism and loads of extracurricular activities, I stayed in decent shape. As a grownup who knows a lot more about nutrition, I’ve put those foods on my “eat sparingly” list. The empty calories and crazy amounts of sugar have kept me from throwing boxes of Toaster Strudel and Bagel Bites into my grocery store cart for years, but I never forget that they’re there.
When I got this assignment, I finally had the green light to go nuts and unleash my inner 12-year-old by eating like one. And it was awesome…until it wasn’t.
Here, all of the things I learned by eating like a middle-school kid for five days.
Pop-Tarts are the tastiest invention of all time. Sorry, but it’s true. These were my favorite thing growing up, and it’s nice to know that my go-to flavor, s'more, is still as amazing as it as in 2002. If you’ve never had a burnt one of these, I highly recommend it.
…But they also make you really, really hungry. By day three of my Pop-Tart breakfast, I was feeling super jittery during my morning meetings and was ready to tear into my preteen lunch by 10 a.m. Honestly, it would probably take me five Pop-Tarts to feel totally satisfied, but that’s an experiment for another day.
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Five days of preteen food doesn’t make you explode, but… Surprisingly, I didn’t feel very bloated during this whole process. I’m happy to report that my pants still fit and I didn’t develop cankles. For the most part, I felt like I was on a constant sugar high, and it was really hard to focus at work.
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Kids’ cereals are still the best cereals. The closest thing I get to cereal these days is sugar-free instant oatmeal. #adulthood So I thought I was in for a glucose bomb by eating Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grams, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Trix cereal (not at the same time, although that could be good). Turns out, they actually tasted just like they used to. There’s a reason these preteen breakfasts of champions are still around: They’re freaking delicious. My teeth felt like they were covered in sugar, but I wasn’t even mad about it. It’s all worth that sugary milk at the bottom of the bowl. Now I remember why I don’t trust myself with an entire box. Not surprisingly, I was hungry about 45 minutes after I got done eating.
I have so much more time when I don’t have to cook. Besides heating things up, I didn’t have to do any meal prepping whatsoever. I didn’t know what to do with all the extra time I had.
Trix yogurt is the worst yogurt of all the yogurts—ever. I picked up a four-pack of “strawberry-punch” flavored yogurt thinking it would be like stuff I used to eat before I discovered Greek yogurt. Welp, it was way worse. Fun fact, there are 13 grams of sugar in a shot-glass-sized container of the pink and purple dairy product. It truly is a strawberry assault to the mouth.
People might call you gross. My boyfriend saw right through my “assignment” to eat a buffet of preteen foods and said he knew this was just an excuse to get my Pop-Tart on (the truth hurts). Since he’s a super healthy guy and nice person, I think he was genuinely concerned for my wellbeing when he made fun of me for eating Pizza Rolls and Hot Pockets. Aw. I eventually got him to cave and eat Bagel Bites with me, though. #winning
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Speaking of Bagel Bites, they’re proof that true love never dies. These tiny bagels with sauce and cheese taste amazing even if you’re of legal drinking age. Unfortunately, post-nostalgic kid meal, I was still super hungry. (Noticing a pattern here?) Nine tiny bagels just isn’t enough for a grown lady. I had to sacrifice my experiment by eating adult food on top of my pizza bagels. But I have no regrets. Bagel Bites, you rock, never change.
One minute you’re in kid-food heaven, the next you’re in struggle city. By day four, a salad sounded so much more appetizing than a Dominos pizza, burrito bowl, and New York bagel combined. I was actually salivating over an image we used for a story about healthy eating. Low point.
Eating a Hot Pocket at work is embarrassing. After popping this thing in the office microwave, it started oozing cheesiness, and I was so pumped to try my ham and cheese Hot Pocket again. But when someone else came into the kitchen, I was kind of ashamed to claim my sad-looking lunch from the microwave. But I ate it with pride. I mean, what’s not to like about nacho cheese and ham inside of crusty dough? I’m pretty sure I used to eat two of these back in the day. I’m terrified what that would do to me as an adult human.
Do not microwave Pizza Rolls…or eat them. So making these in the microwave was a big mistake. Huge. They were soggy and sad. Also, reading the ingredient list while waiting for them to finish scared me. These little mutants had an ingredient list that would go way beyond Twitter’s character count. Yum? Also, did you know there’s a substitute for mozzarella? Yep, and it is in these little pizza nuggets. I honestly can’t say I hated them, but it was day four when I ate these, so maybe my body was beginning to accept this as food.
Fueling your workouts with junk food makes exercising harder. When I went for my normal three-mile jog on day five, I felt the effects of eating processed foods for five days straight. I considered walking blocks in, but somehow I managed to finish the run. Maybe it was all the sugar.
This experience changes you. My first meal post-preteen diet was peanut butter toast, and my all-natural peanut butter didn’t taste as sweet as it normally does, probably because my mouth was still recovering from that Trix yogurt. And a week later, I still found myself craving Bagel Bites or any kind of salty or sugary food. But now that I’m eating real food again, it’s nice to finally feel satisfied two hours after a meal. Plus, I feel good about the stuff I’m putting in my body. Though I’ll never swear off Bagel Bites or Pop-Tarts altogether, even if it means being called “gross.” #SorryNotSorry
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