As a kid, Saturdays were my favorite day of the week. It meant cartoons and pancakes with my dad in the mornings. But perhaps more remarkably, it was “Junk Food Day.”

My family ate beyond healthy the rest of the week. A maximum of 7 grams of sugar in our cereal. Two chips with our sandwich (natural peanut butter, of course). Steamed veggies with no spices and all the low-fat meats we could eat. It might sound boring but it was normal to us, and we became quite attached to our natural foods.

On junk food day all rules were off. We could eat anything we wanted. My sister and I planned for Saturdays, saving up to eat sweets and chips and all kinds of nonsensical foods. We almost had a heart attack when, shortly before a summer vacation to Houston, my grandfather joked that there were no Saturdays in Texas.

Junk Food Day was fairly easy to enforce with a home-schooled family in Middle-of-Nowhere, Wyoming. My parents devised clever schemes to explain why other children ate desserts at neighboring tables at restaurants. “Their junk food day must be on Thursdays,” my parents would tell us. And there were always exceptions—holidays, birthday parties, and of course, Saturdays.

I really didn’t mind this pattern. I learned to love vegetables and fruit and whole grains and tiny health food stores at a young age. I always had a day of splurging to look forward to. And even on Saturdays, I didn’t go overboard because I realized the effects of junk food. When you eat food that’s bad for you, you feel bad.

Per my doctor’s recommendation, I have recently adopted a high protein and gluten-free diet. As a kid I counted grams of sugar to make sure food was acceptable weekday fare, no I count grams of protein. I owe my parents thanks for giving me healthy guidelines as a kid (even though I haven’t always stuck to them as an adult) that help me to make these current dietary changes.

So what does my grown-up Junk Food Day look like? Three weeks in Europe this summer — all the crepes and waffles and chocolate I want. Until then, I’m counting protein grams and eating rice bread. It’s really not so bad.

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