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July 1, 2005
We Need To Feed You Some Fat Food!
That's what one of the nurses said to me as my meal was served last night. I wanted to protest, "But I ate some of the appetizers!" but I had the sense to let it go.
So you're all wondering what I ate. When I showed up at the restaurant, all ready to order the Southwestern Chicken Salad with no cheese and no quesco fresco and no tortilla strips, dressing on the side, I read the menu and found an even better option: an arugula salad! I don't think it was on the online menu, but I had had it before and it's delicious. A giant bowl of arugula, and not baby arugula, adult arugula. Not quite as good as the stuff from MR's garden (there were two leaves available last time I was visiting, and they were amazing!) but really yummy arugula. Roasted red peppers, grape tomatoes, onions, and a balsamic vinegarette. You can order it with grilled chicken, shrimp or portabello mushrooms, so I had it with four grilled shrimp.
I ended up taking part of the salad home because someone had ordered appetizers for us, and I partook of the hummus plate. Their hummus is excellent, and it came with cucumbers, tomatoes, and kalamata olives and feta cheese. That took the edge off my hunger, so in addition to my yogurt at lunch, I'll be eating the rest of my fantastic arugula salad. I had a light lager (it was a brew pub, after all) and a cup of coffee, and all in all it was a very good meal.
When the nurses started to comment on what I was eating (which I really thought wasn't fair because I ate the appetizers but I recognize that very sentence is problematic: why does anyone have the right to say that I should consume more calories, regardless of what they have or have not seen me consume?) I distracted them by inviting them to my birthday/housewarming party. One of them asked if she would be forced to eat "that stuff," by which I can only assume she meant vegetables. I said yes, everyone would be forced, at carrot-point, to consume healthy food.
Can you imagine what would happen if I exclaimed, "We have to feed you some healthy food!" everytime a dining companion was served a high saturated fat, greasy meal?
Actually, I have a bit of a test case for that. Fairly early in my CR journey, one of my closest friends started saying, "Are you allowed to eat that?" every time I would eat something that didn't appear to be ideal CR food (for instance if I would take a piece of bread from the bread basket.) At first, I used it as a teaching moment to explain how there are no off-limits foods on CR: it's not a "Diet" that way. I would explain how I kept my calories low and carefully counted on most days so that I could still enjoy going out with my friends and eating the occasional slice of bread on other days. CR isn't about being all high and mighty and showing off how deprived you are: it's about getting your calories as low as possible while maintaining optimal nutrition and enjoying whatever "quality of life" means to you. The lower you get your calories, we think, the more time you'll have to enjoy your life. As I've said before, I'm not an ascetic at all... I don't like renouncing worldly things (though I did hear an interesting lecture recently about how religion can help people stop stealing other people's yaks. Made me wish I had a yak, or at least had the opportunity to pet one. Have you ever petted a yak?) I don't think of CR as a sacrifice at all... the benefits so far outweigh the losses. Like Liz, I sometimes wonder if I'm just not in enough pain.
I've shelved the issue of taking my calories lower until MR gets here... I've stayed at a very steady level since November and I'm happy with it for another month. It will be so much easier when I have megamuffins, breakfast salad for lunch, and something more entertaining to pay attention to than hunger.
So we'll see how I feel once I start dropping my calories and losing weight again. Will I eat my co-workers, or the neighbors pets? Will MR become ill from sleep-deprivation when the late night Quorn cravings kick in? Will I become convinced that my food is talking to me, telling me to dress it up in Barbie clothes before I eat it?
Stay tuned.
Posted by april at July 1, 2005 7:39 AM
Comments
April:
Here's my major concern at this point. Now Google is going to start putting ads for mail-order yak stores on your blog, and in a moment of impulsive weakness I'm going to cave in and order one. This is REALLY not the sort of complication I need in my life right now, a yak in the garage. Yeesh.
Anyway, your dinner sounds wonderful. Excellent choice. The worst thing about summer here in Steambath, Louisiana is that it's too hot to grow arugula in my garden, and the two stores that carry it charge about $8/sadly wilted leaf.
-Liz
Posted by: Elizabeth at July 1, 2005 6:30 AM
Hey Liz...
There will be arugula at my birthday party. :)
a
Posted by: april at July 1, 2005 8:41 AM