Fear of the Mini-Breakfast

[PhotoNut]

I had the best time with IdahoBeauty and LindaV yesterday. We did the up-at-the-crack-of-dawn yard sale'ing thing. Around mid-morning, Linda and I decided to go get some breakfast so she took me to this great little burger joint that serves a cafe style breakfast. As we sat there looking over the menu, we weighed our choices and probably spent 15 minutes debating with ourselves over which meal would be the most responsible with respect to healthy food choices. Would it be the omlete with ham? How about something from the Side Order section of the menu? Perhaps 2 scrambled eggs and a side of ham? The choices were difficult. If we got the omelete, perhaps we'd fill up on the eggs and meat and be less inclined to eat any of the toast or hash browns. -- What's that you say? Order the omelette and tell them to leave off the toast and hash browns? Um.. right. Look we were trying, ok? But that was a lot to ask on a crisp fall morning when we were starving and had already gotten in so much exercise. :P

Back to the story...

One of the choices on the menu was called "the mini breakfast". It caught my eye several times. I even got brave enough to suggest that I -might- order that. The entire time I'm hearing this voice in my head saying, "Hold on now! You know you can't survive on one egg and two pieces of bacon. And whoever heard of having only ONE piece of toast with breakfast?? Come on, get real.. a half order of hash browns? Hello? Are you nuts? It does say "mini" right there in the name. You know what's going to happen. You'll spend that $5 and end up with an empty plate and wishing you had more to eat because... after all that exercise you know you'll need more sustinance.. protein.. food!"

You should have seen us. Linda was having her own audible debate over her choices while I was having my own audible debate. I changed my selection at least 5 times, scared to death I was going to end up with that "mini-breakfast" and left starving out in the cold wilderness.

Finally, it dawned on me. I'm NOT starving. I'm not miles from a source for my next meal. In fact, I was surrounded by food sources. So why was I so afraid of ordering a "mini" meal?? I decided that I -had- to order that meal just to beat the fear. (Yes, I know the meal still contained toast and hash browns, but... it was a MINI breakfast, ok?? That -has- to be better than a human sized breakfast, right?)

So I order this MINI breakfast and I'll be damn. It came on a full size plate! And wow, the food almost covered the entire plate. Ok, so this might not be so bad afterall. I mean, I have the image that calms the soul right? The full plate of hot, tasty food that's ALL MINE. So, I start eating and I'm still skeptical about this meal. I can see that it's a lot of food, but I keep hearing that taunting voice saying, "Its a MINI meal. M-I-N-I! You're going to be so hungry when it's all gone..."

Lo and behold. I didn't finish it. I ate half of the toast and only half of the taters. I knew I was full but I also knew I was going to keep eating just because it was there. So I quickly pulled a "Linda" and grabbed up my glass of ice water and proceeded to douse the plate with ice chunks and cold water. I then set it aside with a satisfied grin. I had beaten the fear of the "mini breakfast"!

The moral of the story? (for me anyway)

Youre a bandster, ya dummie! You paid $26,000 (thats twenty-six thousand dollars!) to be a bandster. Start thinking like one again! Think small. Order small. Eat from small containers. Use small utensils. Take small bites. And BE smaller!

Good grief. I've got a lot of "getting back to the basics" to do! Hm.. that calls for another thread!

[AnnDe]

Darn!!! I wanted to go with you guys:Cry: You should of called me!:yell: :yell: I think I could of heard ya! Hey I miss all you Idahoeee bandesters! Tell them all hello for me at your support group!

[Jachut]

I could take a leaf out of that book, sigh. I still havent PB'd but I came bloody close on Saturday night. We had a barbecue. Lamb cutlets, drooooool. Have you any idea how expensive lamb is these days? I ate my salad first, then moved onto the lamb. I ate one cutlet, and I was getting full. But lamb cutlets are tiny right? So I ate another one. And I had to give up on the third.

Five minutes later I knew I'd overdone it, I thought my stomach was going to explode. I spent about half an hour bending over the toilet trying to make it come up but I'm not a very talented vomiter. Plenty of slime and a few tasty bits but no joy. It wasnt a "stuck" feeling it was just too much food. In the end I had to go for a 40 minute fast walk which did the trick, moved it down.

I learned a few big lessons - that you dont eat just because its there, when you're full you're FULL and this time my restriction is NOT ebbing away, in fact I think I'm a bit tighter these days than I was a few weeks back.

So when we went out for dinner with family last night, I ate about two forkfulls of my $18 laksa and managed to call it a day, since I just wasnt hungry.

[Plainsneech]

Wish they had mini meals at restaurants(sp) here. Everything is big and covered in gravy. They also hassle you about ordering from the kiddie menu and I hate pulling out the Ive been banded wallet card to show the waitress and then her manager because shes never seen one of those things before

[diva girl]

I love that story, P'Nut. It's so true.

And the idea of dousing things with ice water is brilliant. Thanks to whoever came up with that one. Have you ever done it in front of actual normal people (as opposed to abnormal bandsters)? I'm the queen of eating the whole plate til it's empty and I'd love a technique to use in restaurants.

Anyway, congrats on your revelations.

lyn

[housecatgirl]

Oh, I wish I could eat some toast...ummm...hashbrowns...yum
Anyway, good for you...sounds like you handled that very well!!

[wavydaby]

In front of people, I put my napkin IN my leftovers. almost squash it with the napkin. then put my fork on top of the napkin.
I'd try the ice water trick, but I know that I would just end up putting too much on the plate and it would flow over on to my lap.
Too bad they dont let you smoke anymore in resturants, my dad would use his plate as an ash tray. I wouldnt eat anything left on that plate. :)
(joking --- only joking.)

[LapBandit]

You hit the nail on the head P'Nut. I got a kick out of this post because I've been struggling with this exact scenario lately.

I've been out to dinner a lot lately, not by choice, but because of the activities/people I've been involved with. I do something similar, instead of putting the ice water on my food-I just use my plate as the garbage plate. The lemon slices, opened sweetener packets, used napkins etc. which accumulate from a meal all go on my plate. This way I know that any leftover food is no longer edible.

Any way, thanks for the story. It made me realize I'm not alone in the age-old struggle of food vs. me!

[MoOrLess]

Although I'm not banded -it really IS the same for me. I went to eat lunch (alone, got some reading done) between classes. I am sitting at Panera - slurping my soup, ate some bread dipped in the soup - half-way thru I was like - well what the heck...I'm FULL. Indeed, the stomach has shrunk woo hoo! But when I went to order - I was thinking hmm, soup won't be enough. Glad to say I was wrong with that mindset and the last time I ordered soup and 1/2 sandwich the sandwich was kept for my next meal.

So I guess I ACT like a banded person anyhow lol