Wednesday update

The last few days have been pretty good. 

I had a particularly striking moment on Sunday, at Olive Garden.  During the time that I “put myself in food prison” (through the use of Lean Cuisines and a strict sense that I need to stick PRECISELY to the Jenny Craig-esque plan that I developed), I simply would not go to any restaurant that didn’t have some sort of low fat, low calorie option.  Olive Garden is good in that way – in one respect.  You can order soup and salad, and if you order the minestrone, and limit yourself to one breadstick, you’ll do pretty well.  I think the minestrone soup is quite good.  I enjoy it enough that it at least somewhat feels like a treat.

So Olive Garden is a pretty decent choice when you’re in food prison.  At least there is something reasonably good to order…unlike Red Robin’s menu, where the ONLY thing under 500 calories is a cup of their chicken tortilla soup.  A CUP of soup.  Hardly enough to sustain a person while everyone else is chowing down on French fries and burgers.

But…on the other hand…if you’re not in the mood for soup and salad, Olive Garden has few other menu choices.  I think I’ve mentioned before how I’m not a huge salad fan.  And Olive Garden’s salad can be all over the map in terms of quality.  Sometimes they barely put any dressing on it, and it will seem like mostly just huge, unwieldy chunks of iceberg lettuce mixed with onion slices.

On Sunday, I faced a dilemma.  As we were sitting with our menus at Olive Garden, I just wasn’t feeling the soup and salad.  I wanted something hot, a REAL entree, not just minestrone soup.  I noticed an item on their “For a limited time…” menu insert, something called “Chicken Milanese,” and when my husband urged me to just go for it, I weakened. 

The entire time before our food arrived, I was sitting there, sort of kicking myself.  How was I going to handle this issue?  I remember from my Jenny Craig episodes that one trick is to ask for half the entree to be boxed even before it arrives at the table, but I hadn’t done that.  I would have to just mentally split the plate in half and control myself.

Olive Garden’s Chicken Milanese comes with two chicken breasts, coated with Italian bread crumbs and then (I’m guessing) pan-fried.  Obviously not a very low-fat or low-calorie choice.  It also comes with tortellini stuffed with asiago cheese and covered in cream sauce.  Again, not a very good choice. 

And, it was very delicious.  After my first bite of the tortellini, especially, I wasn’t sure I could exert any self-control.

But that’s when I took a deep breath and decided that I simply was NOT going to eat more than one of the chicken breast pieces, and I’d only have half the tortellini, if that.  I reminded myself to slow down.  Actually TASTE the food.  Set my fork and knife down between bites.  Chew more slowly.

It sounds so silly, but I do need these reminders.  And as I made a conscious effort to actually taste what I was eating, to SAVOR it, I realized that it was taking me longer to eat the half that I was allowing myself.

And you know what?  By the time I finished one piece of the chicken, and perhaps less than half of the tortellini, I started to feel full.  I set down my fork and thought about the rest of the tortellini.  (That was the best part of the meal.)  In the old days, I would easily have polished off the entire plate, but now…honestly?  Half was MORE than enough.  I was happy to ask the server for a “to go” container.  Happy.

It was one of those moments when food ceased to have power over me.  I was not – somehow – obligated to finish everything on my plate.  I’ve always known this, and I’ve never been one to compulsively eat something that I don’t enjoy.  But when I do enjoy something, I’ve always had a problem with wanting the pleasure to continue until I feel sick.  That has always been why I gain weight – I have a weird mindset where I want no limits.  It’s why I would automatically order the large fries and always finish them.

But on Sunday, as we left Olive Garden, I realized that I did not have to live like that.  I could do this.  I could actually eat like a thin person, and do so with some honesty.  By the time I’d consciously tasted half the food on my plate, I truly did not want any more of it. 

It was quite freeing.  Maybe in the future, I’d be able to continue to order normal menu items, instead of keep myself in “food prison” by limiting myself only to the low calorie options.  Maybe.

I don’t know how I would ever handle a hamburger, though.  I doubt I could eat only half of it, and I still think it’s better to just stay away from places like Red Robin unless I simply can’t avoid them.

But that’s another struggle for another day.

Monday, the day after my Olive Garden triumph, I went shopping for some new clothes.  I have not had that much fun trying on things in simply YEARS.  I can’t remember the last time I felt so good about myself.  I’m very, very close to my goal.  That day, all the weeks of “food prison” and all the limits I’ve put on myself seemed like a tiny price to pay for being able to look stylish and normal-sized…for being able to feel like I was almost at my best, or as Oprah and Bob Greene would say, “Living my best life.”