This two-ingredient combo finally got me excited about clean eating.

Watermelon and lemon go together like conservatives and hypocrisy.

Google says I didn’t invent this combination, but out of obligation I want to tell you exactly how it happened to me. I don’t like dieting and the reason is simple: the food tastes so good and dieting makes me feel like I’m punishing myself unnecessarily.

I’m a pig for a great steak. I’m a pig for lobster macaroni and cheese. I’m a pig for every single Italian dish ever made except spaghetti. I’m a sucker for buttered, freshly baked bread. I’m a fusion pig—and I’m a pig for washing down all those beautiful dishes with a craft cocktail made by a farm-to-table person wearing nothing but flannel. I’d rather eat than work or read or smoke a Jay that Rihanna rolled and got me from Barack Obama the night he became the first black president. I love to eat.

So it’s no surprise that at a recent doctor’s visit, a crowd of people in lab coats walked into the small room where I was patiently waiting and a variation said, “You should try not to eat, especially if you want to live.” ‘ and ‘You’ll never be full again’ and ‘I hope and pray you’re starving’ and ‘Delete all cooking shows from all your appliances because you’re now a protein bon vivant.’

I’m sure it didn’t come out that way, but as someone who would rather eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant than play tennis with Serena in Oprah’s backyard, that’s exactly what I heard. But fortunately for me, I will always put my family and well-being above everything, even my binge eating. People do this every day, and if there’s one thing I specialize in, it’s mastering things that people do every day.

On this journey, I began to force myself to love no-dressing salads, jugs of purified water, the bitterest dark chocolate as a treat, and yes, non-seasonal salmon. It’s been like this for about a week now and the only thing I’ve learned is that delicious food is a bit like heroin – once you get over the pain that drinking brings, you might be able to Reaching normalcy and maybe even enjoying the boring universe of what they call “clean eating.” The other day I happened to experience this joy.

I grabbed a salad from one of my favorite places in Baltimore called Atwater’s. They specialize in chicken salad sandwiches (a beautiful dish I may never enjoy again), delicious apple pies, and all kinds of fancy breads — other things that have kind of died out to me. My salad had goat cheese that I had plucked, pecans, and fresh watermelon. The freshest watermelon I’ve ever eaten; It kind of tasted like Jesus grew it.

“Do you guys have a side of that watermelon?” I asked the waitress, “It sure is good.”

She said no. As I ate the salad, without the dressing of course, I had a hard time chewing the large leafy greens, so I grabbed the lemon that was sitting on my glass of water and squeezed it onto the salad. Some lemon juice hits the watermelon and Oh my god, my god, god.

It felt like I’d cut into a hot fudge brownie sundae. It was so unexpectedly good. I immediately bought another salad and then raced to the grocery store, where I bought a huge container of pre-sliced ​​watermelon and a bag of lemons.

When I got home, I put a portion of the sliced ​​watermelon in a bowl and squeezed lemon juice over it until there was almost a little puddle, and suddenly clean eating didn’t seem so boring to me. I wonder what else is there?