Burger binge.

Last night we went for a VERY late dinner with the kids -- after 9 pm -- to a bar-type burger restaurant in Uptown.  The restaurant has a gigantic photograph on the wall, a Chuck Close-style photograph of the head of an urban hipster having a gigantic juicy burger stuffed ironically into his gaping mouth, the lettuce and tomato dripping onto his ironically unshaven chin.

The kids had kid-sized cheeseburgers and fries and a shake and some onion rings.  Mark, who enjoys a good burger sometimes, had a big bacon cheeseburger and a pint of local stout.

I asked if the veggie burger was made in-house and got a curt "No."  Not about to shell out $8 for a veggie puck that had been shaken out of a box moments ago, I contemplated a big patty melt, since the last thing I had eaten was three slices of Hannah's homemade banana bread, six hours ago.  My stomach was really growling.

  But!  I noticed they had sliders for $3 each, which I suspected (correctly) were the same as the kid-sized burgers.    I ordered a big salad and one slider, with lettuce and tomato to drip onto my non-ironically unshaven chin.  I ate the little burger first, so I could enjoy it while it was still hot and fresh and the edges of the bun still crisp, and at the end of it I wished there was a second one on my plate.  But by the time I had gotten to the bottom of my salad, I felt comfortable.  

I was glad I had not said to myself, "I'm truly hungry, so it's okay to have a full-size burger."   Even though I surely could have eaten it and would have enjoyed every bite.  The truth is, whenever I try to eat in response to my hunger, I fool myself into eating more than my hunger requires.  Structure is more important.  

I keep learning this over and over again:  sometimes by making a mistake (eating too much and being overfull), and sometimes by not making a mistake (fixing less food than I think my hunger requires and discovering that it is indeed satisfying.)  

I am less and less impressed by the idea that to lose or maintain weight, people should eat "when hungry and only when hungry."  It's just too vague and easy to defeat in the face of the slightest desire to eat.

Comments

[Erin]

I could have written this post except that I did not make such positive choices during my late dinner out last night. I started off with the right idea by ordering the salad bar and soup, but I've discovered a salad bar is far too much temptation for me. I was very hungry due to the late hour, and I rationalized with the best of them. I'm finding that eating in restaurants is enormously challenging. I try plan my order ahead of time, even going so far as to check the restaurants website for nutritional information, but it's hard. I have two 5 day business trips coming up and I'm already in a quandary about how to handle 3 meals out a day for 10 days.
Erin

[bearing]

Yeah, salad bars would be great if they were just, y'know, SALAD.

Well, with 30 restaurant meals coming up, I would say you have a golden opportunity to experiment with different restaurant strategies and find out which ones work best (by "work best" I mean, at the end of the meal you feel satisfied that you made good choices.) You could make a list of a handful of strategies and try each one in turn -- pick the strategy ahead of time, not after you've seen the menu -- and see which ones are easy to follow without getting snookered into a bad choice. Keep some notes.

Strategies include "order what you want and throw away half," "order something small," "order vegetables for two -- not salad bar -- and eat half of any sandwich..."

BTW, breakfast is often tough, but remember that tomato juice is a vegetable and oatmeal is a whole grain :-)

[jenny]

I have really been appreciating these latest additions to your series on weight loss and gluttony. I'm losing some post-baby weight (baby is nearly 5 months old (my 4th--twins, 18 months later a singleton, 21 months later another singleton), I've still got around 23 pounds to lose, after having gained a total of 65-ish with this pregnancy) and am finding your posts fascinating.

I haven't ever struggled with weight--I played soccer and ran cross-country in college, still run when I'm not a million pounds pregnant and swim when I am. My husband teases me for being able to put down my fork and announce "I'm done" when there's only one or two bites left on my plate. I don't have trouble eating while I'm cooking (again, my husband teases me because when he asks, "Is it good?" I always have to say, "I haven't tasted it yet!"), finishing my kids' food, or feeling guilty about throwing away food. My downfall is sweets--cake, cookies, chocolate--though I wouldn't consider myself a disordered eater.

I say this not to provoke, but to explain where I'm at... and why it's so fascinating to read your detailed, honest posts about the cravings and learning to make good choices and all that. I know it's a blessing that eating isn't a source of stress for me; Deo gratias for that.

Losing weight is a bit difficult for me--staying steady is very easy, as I'm not particularly given to over-eating, but eating at a deficit... that's tough. I'm hoping to make it easier on myself next pregnancy by hopefully not gaining so much weight.

Lately, too, I've been thinking about what has changed in the way I eat now from the way I ate in, say, grad school. I'm also trying to figure out how much and what effect sleep deprivation has on my eating, and trying to figure out ways around giving in to cravings (chocolates, sweets) when I hit that mid-afternoon sweet moment when ALL FOUR KIDS ARE NAPPING SIMULTANEOUSLY.

I think, in some ways, it's particularly difficult and frustrating to have to constantly reject my cravings expressly because weight hasn't ever been an issue for me--I've always been an eat-whatever-I-want kind of girl, and my natural disinclination toward overeating has meant that even eating what I wanted kept me at a good, healthy weight.

Now, I find that my "mistake" these days is foregoing something I really like (say, peanut butter) and used to eat every day (say, as a sandwich at lunch) for some days in a row, and then when I finally give in and eat some, it's like the THICKEST PB & J I've ever eaten before... like I'm trying to make up for all the days I didn't eat peanut butter. I guess that's one place I do tend toward gluttony.

Anyway, it's nice to have you to read while I'm thinking through some of these things. Thank you.

[bearing]

Jenny, thanks for a very thoughtful and interesting comment.

I have to say, I wouldn't worry too much about dealing with cravings that hit you when four kids are napping simultaneously. I mean, how long is that kind of luck going to last? :-)

But I can really see how it would be difficult to have been able to eat pretty much whatever you wanted most of your life, and then have your body's needs suddenly change on you and have to relearn how to feed yourself, so to speak. I think that happens to a lot of women as they hit menopause in particular, but there's also the "I've been pregnant or nursing for x number of years and now I'm suddenly not" shock...