Don’t look at me…
This isn’t about me. I’m never weird about food. I eat for fuel, period! I definitely do not mark my calendar when I’m feeling fat so that I can check back next time I feel fat and see whether it has something to do with the time of the month.
These are some things I’ve *heard* people do and think when they’ve spent their whole lives wanting to eat their weight in cookie dough but also not wanting to be fat. Note: the sandwich tricks work for burgers, too, and vice versa.
1. The “Same As You” Diet
Matching bite for bite will keep you tight! Feel confident you’re not eating too much as long as you don’t eat more than the other person, even if the other person just ate ribeye for two, a whole Baby Watson cheesecake, a whole baby human, and a stick of butter.
2. The “Less Than You” Diet
Feel skinnier-than-thou for leaving more on your plate than the other person. Even if the other person just ate brisket for ten, foie gras party platter, cone of fries, and onion soup with the cheese on top. Feel extra svelte if they ate all the cheese top and you left most of it. Or even if all you left was a crouton.
3. The “Must Be Nice” Diet
Order the healthy thing that sounds so-so, and raise your eyebrows a little when the other person orders the delicious-sounding thing that doesn’t merely have cream but blatantly says cream in the menu description. Think, “must be nice to eat like that” but then pick at their delicious cream dish to the point where you’ve consumed more of it than they have. Stare distractedly at your friend’s uneaten portion, wonder whether your friend is done or just “resting,” then yell NO! when the waiter tries to take away the plate. Go to town on those sloppy scraps.
4. The Lonely Salad
Even though everyone’s sharing, order your own green salad or steamed vegetable side that no one else wants, because their idea of a salad is a cheese plate, and you “need to fill up on greens.” Then, eat your private tragic veggie thing plus everything they eat.
5. The Sandwich Slide-back
With each bite of sandwich, slide back the top piece of bread like it’s a candy wrapper, so you can advance on the filling without eating both sides of the bread. Then, eat that piece of bread anyway because it’s there.
6. The Sandwich Spielunk
Burrow into a sandwich middle like a mole, to get a bread-less bite of meat and lettuce and tomato. Then, eat the bread bits because they’re there.
7. The Hamburger Haircut
Rip all the bun overhang off a burger and then keep trimming, so there’s just enough bread to pick up the patty between thumb and forefinger without any skin-on-beef contact. The bread is just a meat holder, nothing more. Then, eat the bun bits because they’re there.
8. The Burger Beheading
Remove the top bun altogether and attack resulting open-face item with fork and knife. Then, pick apart the remaining bread because it has delicious grease on it and because it’s there.
9. The 11th Hour Ice Cream Pardon
Buy a carton of ice cream, eat too much of it, decide to dispose of it, double bag it for the garbage chute, tie it up, then undo the knots, reopen both bags, and give the ice cream a frantic goodbye party it’ll never forget by devouring all but a few bites. Throw vastly lightened carton down chute.
10. The Narrate-In-Real-Time Murmur
As you reach out with your fork for a dish that everyone else at the table has stopped eating, mumble in a frequency only audible to bats, “I’m taking another bite of this.”
11. The Calories-Over-Time Formula
Buy a quantity of food meant to last a long time, such as a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. When you polish it off way faster than expected, calculate how many days ago you bought it and hope that you’re remembering wrong. Because there are 14 servings, so how did it go so fast between now and just this past Saturday? Determine whether that’s too many “extra” calories to consume in four days, considering some late-night helpings functioned as dessert. Ask your husband if he’s been eating lots of it and be pissy for the rest of the night when he says he hasn’t had any.
12. The Reverse Calories-Over-Time Formula
Be psyched that your cookies got stale, because it means you’ve made them last that long.
13. The “Jam Is Spoon Food” Mentality
Well it is, isn’t it? Or fork food? Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves has big whole strawberries in it, and I know I’m not the only one who fishes them out and eats them like they’re fruit salad.
Your turn.
Do you have a *friend* who’s weird about food? Scroll down and add your own food weirdness items to the list in the comments below.
I’ve seen someone set their food down and tell it to stay like it’s gonna sprout legs and run away.
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I’ve recently lost a lot of weight through a plan of working out, eating less carbs…and a little gall stone, named Jed. Hey, dedication pays off.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who loves ‘to have written’ but hates to ‘write’. But hate is such a strong word.
Absence makes the heart grow stronger, so the less you write, the more we want your words. (At least that’s what I’m hoping about my newsletter subscribers.)
Yeah, the problem with eating healthy for a while lets you think you can down that carton of ice cream just that one time. I guess everything ebbs and flows.
Thanks for your flow.
Sadly, I’ve had to retire most such food indulgences. Dinner is now pretty much from the appetizer menu, with a *very* light snack a bit later. Else I get to “enjoy” dinner all night. =(
On the other hand, breakfast, bring it!
I can’t *wait* to roar out of bed tomorrow morning…
As it turns out, I met a friend for dinner at Pied Piper. Ok, appetizer for me, I had the Tuna Tartare. He had the burger.. He doesn’t really eat that much at one sitting in the best case, so two bites from his burger and half the fries, he’s done and gets it bagged to go.
We leave.
I forget my phone and glasses, rushing back from the train into the bar. I find the waitress, she hands me my glasses, phone… and the burger! A great, big, cheesy bacon-y burger (minus two bites).
Breakfast!
Livin’ the wild life here in San Fran. Heh.
I’ve been around numerous people that order large salads and then don’t eat ANY of the greens….just all the toppings and dressing…greens aren’t the healthiest part anyways, right? ha jk
No, all the vitamins are in the mayo and parmesan. Love your last name, do people give you money?
Ha! Of course! My clients pay the “paymaster.” Love the site!
I knew this woman in Canada who would invent reasons to make cookies so she could eat the dough (“They’re for the nice folks who work at the rec center”). To keep herself from eating too much, she would chew gum while she stirred the soft, tempting dough. But she ended up taking bites of the dough anyway, even with the gum in her mouth, which she would store in her left cheek while enjoying the cookie dough bite in her right cheek. They would merge somewhere in her mouth and the gum would become sticky chocolate-mint mush, which she would eventually swallow. There wasn’t much dough left to bake actual cookies (sorry, rec center.) I wonder what happened to her…
Wow, you know so much about this woman in Canada! She must have confided in you quite deeply. She sounds like one remarkable lady.
Here’s one you forgot:
The “Vegetarian Illusion” is where you make and devour three huge pizzas covered in onions, olives, peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes because, hey…
Veggies are good for you!
That’s a good trick! Does it count if you cleanse your colon afterwards?
Then there’s the “Just One” diet (not for me, of course). Oh, I’ll just have one teaspoon of peanut butter when I’m walking out of the kitchen. Or just one chocolate covered almond when I walk back in. And when I’m walking out again, it certainly can’t hurt to have just one small handful of peanuts. Or a cracker with some cheese. Hmmmm. Why aren’t there any cookies or ice cream in this house? I just wanted one. And I’m always forgetting something in the kitchen, so I have to go back again.
Where’d you pick up weird food habits? Not in this house!
Yeah, where did I pick up my weird habits? If “just one handful” counts in the “just one” category, it’s a slippery slope! Just one row of brownies. Just one whole cake.
If I don’t actually take it out of the fridge, it doesn’t count. I’ve eaten entire tupperwares full of leftovers with my hands while bending down to hide behind the door.
Oh, that’s so true. Your calculations are correct, it doesn’t count, especially if you didn’t use utensils and no one could see you
Oh. And this weekend I came up with the “Amy’s Microwave Food Diet”. I was in Calistoga the weekend with Archer and all we had in our kitchen to cook with was a microwave. So we’re at the local store’s freezer section looking at all the Amy’s food. Lo and behold, there is a 160 calorie, gluten-free, dairy-free, Shepard’s Pie. Jackpot, considering I’m a bridesmaid this weekend. And jackpot for Archer, a 400 calorie tortellini with pesto cream sauce. I suddenly got the success of Jenny Craig.
I used to live on Weight Watchers microwave meals. I LOVED the calorie count. I’d follow it up with a Weight Watchers “ice cream” sandwich. And then later in the eve, many rice cakes and a bag of carrots. Bad diet.
Yay Laura! Also totally hear you with the writing/not writing thing. The thing is, your fans don’t care, we’re just happy to hear from you.
First off, if you count as a “fat prone” person, then I am truly f’ed.
I’ve noticed lately how much I love dissolving powders into liquid. I have a green powder that I drink in the morning and it makes me feel like I’ve had vegetables so then I don’t have to worry about eating actual vegetables. I also have a magnesium powder that’s called “Natural Calm” which has the bonus effect of helping you with #2 which is helpful if the only veggies you eat are a powder.
Ox
Cecilia
Thanks, Cecilia!
Yes, I’m totally fat prone. My life is a delicate balancing act between what I want to eat (everything, all day) and what, metabolically speaking, I can afford to eat. I really would weigh 200 lbs no problem, if the world all went blind and I didn’t care and just ate what I felt like.
Ok, 1&2 have my name all over it. This is how I got into a struggle with weight when I met my husband 20 some years ago. I went from near starvation ( I was pretty young and poor!) to eating steak and potatoes everyday…but it was what he was eating and he was slim! I should have taken into account he was also eating “gainers fuel” shakes and weight lifting to GAIN weight! And now, all my teeny yoga friends whom I eat with regularly, if I only eat as much as them, surely I have things under control? Can’t be all my fault can it if I eat SO LITTLE and am still the largest girl at the table. Must be my thyroid, lol.
Ah, who doesn’t pray for a doctor’s diagnosis of under-performing thyroid? I can’t hang with the yoga crowd. My theory is that most of them got into yoga because they don’t have to sweat much to stay slim. They already look that way, but say, “This? All yoga.” They just like the Lulu Lemon gear.
You’re right Laura, must of them never sweat! They LOVE hot yoga because they get the chance to get all sweaty, lame!
Oh btw, another weird habit…eating dinner with the family, and controlling my portions (somewhat- look at me, I don’t have a problem!), then when carrying the food into the kitchen to pack up as “leftovers” continue to pick and eat at the food, especially pasta, just because it’s there 🙂
Like #9, I have the “Garbage Disposal Retrieval”. This is for when I have to recipe test say, corn muffins. I am helpless against their sweet, buttery, corny, pull. But in a fit of protecting myself, I can shove them into the disposal really quickly. But there it sits, with it’s little head poking out, which is of course the best part to eat. So I eat it out of the disposal. At least the rest are in enough contact with whatever disgusting things lurk inside the disposal so that not even I will dip in past the rubber guard.
The disposal turtlehead. Living in NYC, that’s one thing I don’t have to admit to. But I can imagine doing that, and my scarf or hoodie tie getting stuck and choking me, and having my last thought be, “I died eating muffin out of the garbage disposal.” Be careful, Liz.
No worries, Laura. I’m also the post-then-no-post writer. In fact, my latest blog on my site talks about peach season, and is sitting behind me breathing moistly down my neck, waiting to be released from the “most recent” position. We had frost today and the peaches are most certainly gone. Meanwhile, I’m writing up a storm for others.
Your posts are always worth waiting for and this one is no exception.
(Also, I’ve adopted a puppy and now work AROUND her schedule. I’m pathetically puppy-whipped.)
That’s the problem with seasonal posts! I’ve screwed myself with so many of those. Nothing worse than having a Halloween post still at the top of your blog in May.
Thanks for letting me know I’m in good company, Marci!
I do remember, as a kid in day camp, all the girls who said during trips to Carvel “Oh, I’m not going to have ice cream, I’m going to have the Thinny Thin instead”…and then they’d polish off a whole quart of it.
Remember the Thinny Thin radio ads?
“What’s Thinny Thin?”
“It’s for Fatty Fats, like you!”
You should see the quantities of Tasti-D-Lite the bony Joffrey ballet students used to eat for lunch. Buckets, with peanut butter mixed in. It was downstairs from the studio.