This wasn’t a dinner off, and I prepped for it by eating modestly for the whole day beforehand but I was somewhat nervous walking into Teddi’s house with no clue as to what I’d be facing (or eating). I needn’t have worried really; she’s a healthy cook.
I selected a portion of lamb (about five ounces), a serving of potatoes and a serving of snow peas with mushrooms. My indulgence, ironically, was a helping of Caesar salad. For the uninitiated Caesar salad is an indulgence because of the frelling dressing, it’s a total fat-fest diet killer, however I love the stuff. So thbbbtt. I skipped the bread and the macaroni and cheese, lovely as they looked – I know them for the carb laden calorie beasts they are.
Boy howdy – lamb is a happy thing. Very, very tasty… Although when I got home and looked up its calorie content I went into sticker shock for just a moment. 85 calories / ounce! That means my modest 5 oz. portion was 425 calories and 23 grams of fat! Owie!
Still, because of the aforementioned budgeting I made it through well within my daily calorie count. The hard part was dessert…
Normal people when gathered with friends, like a bit of desert. Obviously I’ve had a lot more than my fair share of desert in my life so far, so I need to take a pass on it for a bit to make up for that. But I absolutely adore sugar; especially when it’s combined with chocolate. The milkier, the fattier the chocolate – the better.
A friend once said to me “I think about 5% of the people who say they like dark chocolate actually do like it best, the rest just want to look cool.” I think she’s probably right there so I’ll be the first to admit; I’m a milk chocolate person. The kind with zero nutritional benefits, the sweeter the better. Heath bars? Milky way? Three musketeers? Heaven.
Sorry… I mentally derailed myself there with a lurid fantasy about chocolate bars, I was talking about last night’s dessert…
Pumpkin tiramisu. With this incredible pumpkin spicy mousse on top and gingerbread cakey stuff underneath, sprinkled with nuts – the smell was pure heaven.
I didn’t eat any, not a bite. The truth is I have a sweet tooth that can sort of stay asleep if I don’t feed it. It’s actually easier for me to just not taste at all, then to taste one bite and no more. So I had two cups of fantastic, hot tea and thought hard about the costume corset I want to get for myself when I attain my goal weight. Here’s a picture…
Is this better than desert? Right now I think so, hopefully I’ll still feel that way in another six, ten and twelve months. As the blog name suggests – it’s a very long road I’m on.
Oh, and yeah, I’m a big geek – just in case anyone is actually reading this who doesn’t know me in real life.
As I sat there last night enjoying my tea I experienced slight concern over whether I was making others uncomfortable by being such a hard nose about what I’ll put in my mouth right now. I would never want to make anyone feel like I was judging them, I’ve been judged too often myself in life to ever do that. Besides which I feel as though no one around me needs to refrain as much as I do – since no one else is so overweight.
Beyond that I do not want to become an obsessive. I’ve sat in the past having conversations with people who could speak of nothing except the nutritional value, caloric content and bad side effects of food or when they’d get in their next workout. I do NOT want to be that girl.
But then, I’ve had to make this such a huge part of my psyche right now – how can I avoid it?
No good answer there yet, but I’ll keep working on it. Thankfully I’ve got friends good enough to tell me to shut to heck up about it if I start to become a nuisance.
On occasion I can recall sitting and speaking to people who couldn’t wrap their heads around fat people. Who couldn’t fathom why anyone would put a single bite of food in their mouths that they didn’t need for nutrition and everyday survival. Couldn’t fathom someone being unable to change their eating habits even though those habits were very likely propelling them toward an earlier grave than necessary.
To those people I say – you might want to get down, right now, on your knees and thank God that your body doesn’t crave food it doesn’t need. Because if it doesn’t, that’s a gift you did not earn, pure and simple.
Most of us normal humans just like to eat, and that impulse once it becomes a habit, is as hard to break as any addiction. Possibly harder – since smokers don’t have to smoke one cigarette a day (and only one) in order to survive.
Oh I’ve been judged all right. Judged and found wanting. As if I were not aware that when someone was speaking to me indistinctly about ‘fat people’ that they were really saying “YOU Carolyn – why can’t you just stop eating?!”
Whatever happens now, succeed or fail, I will never become that. Never.
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