Eating Out
In an effort (hopefully a good one) to both save money and decrease the waistline, I have started eating out less at lunch and at dinner. Eating out at lunch is jsut plain easy, but in adding it up at $6 a lunch (minimum) that is over $100 a month - seems like a lot of wasted money!
It hasn’t been as hard as I thought, maybe because of something I began to notice recently. I would go out to eat with my coworkers, and then, like clockwork, would suddenly feel sick. In researching on the Internet, I have come to the conclusion that I must have some mild form of emetophobia, the fear of vomiting. It comes on suddenly at the table, usually when I am done eating and waiting for the check. That uncontrollable urge to simply bring up everything I have consumed.
Perhaps it is also a sub-conscious way for my body to tell me to stop going to the buffet also, but it happens buffet or not, always in a public place and never at home. About a year and a half ago I had an incident at the Golden Corral where I ended up blowing the entire steak brunch I had in the restaurant outside. Not just in one place mind you, but in 3 or 4 places strewn across the parking lot. I cringed when I thought of other customers who might walk by that particular area, who probably turned around and promptly left. I haven’t been back there since.
Perhaps it is emetophobia, perhaps I am just eating too much when I go out, but the simplest solution is simply to take my lunch to work or not have any lunch at all. And that has been working this entire week.
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I have to be honest here - when I went to Minnesota in September 2004, the amount of food that was served in restaurants, bars and fast food joints was unbelieveable compared to the portions served over here in Blighty.
I felt the same way after eating out, but I think I may be coming from a different angle here. As a kid, I was always taught to clear the plate, and that leaving food was considered rude. As such, when I was in the US I felt obliged to clear the plate, even though the sheer amount of food on the plate would feed me for a week. As such, I felt sick pretty much after every meal because I couldn’t eat that much!
I watched something on TV recently about the US having an obesity problem. From a completely personal perspective, I can honestly say that if I ate those portions regularly, I would have an obesity problem too.