I never understood how much Lorelai Gilmore actually ate during the seven seasons the show ran until I gained three pounds in one week.
As an experiment, I based all my decision-making on what she would do for one week, and thanks to that, my black workout pants are too tight now. I actually thought that her eating habits were something to admire and something I wanted to try at some point of my life, but I never had the courage to actually do it. Sure, I love pizza and ice cream, but I never embraced the eat-junk-food-every-day lifestyle that Lorelai lived by.
Over the summer (and before this experiment), my life was very much unlike Lorelai. I woke up every day before 9 a.m. to go to the gym, I ate really healthy, and I made sure I was feeding my body the right nutrients. I was in great shape, and I loved that feeling. But when I came back to college I started picking up bad habits. It is easier to heat frozen nuggets in the microwave than preparing grilled chicken, and Easy Mac is always preferable over a real meal when you have less than 20 minutes between work and meetings. Having a Shake Shack right below your apartment doesn’t help at all either, especially when you know you forgot to defrost the meat for the fifth day in a row.
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I started feeling tired after a while, and I could feel how my body was changing. It was definitely something I was not happy with. I decided to change this and go back to my summer habits. I found a workout buddy, I Instacart’ed fruits and veggies, and I was ready to go and pinned a lot of healthy recipes on my Pinterest’s boards. That was until I decided to make every decision by asking, “What Would Lorelai Gilmore Do?”
I started my week by waking up as late as I could. I normally I try to wake up at least an hour before leaving the house so I don’t have to rush anywhere, but I knew that sleeping in was something Lorelai would do. I rushed down the door with shoes in hand and putting them on as I sprinted downstairs. When I got out of my apartment, I knew it was time for coffee, and I opted for the coffee shop that serves the strongest, biggest coffee on campus.
“Coffee, coffee, coffee!” I said as I got near the cashier.
“Excuse me?” she asked me, with an annoyed expression on her face.
“Coffee, big, dark,” I replied. I knew this was not the appropriate way to order my morning drink, but hey—it was the Lorelai in me talking!
I ordered the largest coffee they have on their menu. I am a believer of splurging on coffee just when it is extremely necessary, otherwise I will brew my own cup of joe at home. I knew Lorelai wouldn’t brew her own coffee unless she was fighting with Luke, and since I haven’t picked a fight with my barista (yet!), I decided to go for it.
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I got to my internship 20 minutes after my stop at the coffee shop. I could feel my heart racing, and the caffeine was making me extremely anxious. Even if I normally drink strong coffee, I’d never had one this strong. While I was working on my project, the secretary of the office offered me coffee, and a Gilmore never says no to more coffee, so I went for it. During the whole week my caffeine levels were extremely high, to the point that sleeping before 3 a.m. was not an option. I also started drinking coffee after 4 p.m., something that my grandmother taught me not to do. Uh oh.
I bought lunch almost every day from food trucks around the area or the food court below my office. I wanted to pack lunch or bring something from home, but I knew that Lorelai doesn’t cook unless she is using a microwave to reheat leftovers. I started watching movies and eating an insane amount of nachos (read: melted cheese on top of Tostitos), a couple bags of Reese’s… and let’s not even talk about take-out. I had enough leftovers to feed an entire army.
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Besides changing my eating and coffee-drinking habits, I started saying everything that was on my mind out loud. I have always been a straightforward girl, but this week I took it to another level. Instead of waiting to be asked for my opinion, I would just give my two cents about everything. As Lorelai would do, I was extremely sarcastic and ironic with all my answers, and I babbled a lot. I used more pop culture references, even ones that nobody would understand. Some of my friends even got tired of my excessive talking, and one of them asked me to give her a break. She knew I was doing this project, but she couldn’t take my babbling anymore.
I didn’t clean my room at all during that week either, and I just left my clothes spread around the floor or on my desk. I refused to do my laundry until the last minute. I was more of a slob that week that I have ever been in my life. I even stopped using my color-coded system because Rory is the organized one of the pair. I felt like my disorganization was getting out of control, and it was starting to bother the type-A person I am, but more than once I had to sit down and pretend nothing was out of order because that’s how Lorelai would handle this.
I have to admit that my opinion of Lorelai Gilmore changed significantly when I started acting like her. When I got out of my first serious relationship, Gilmore Girls was the show that reminded me how strong I am. I thought of both Rory and Lorelai as role models, people worth admiring and maybe imitating, but after making every decision based on Lorelai I realized there is no one I would rather be than myself. Lorelai is great to watch on TV, but her life is not for me. Even if I’m normally a sarcastic-coffee-lover-straight-forward girl, I am never going to be a Gilmore, and I’m okay with that.