Eat, Drink and Be Merry ...

Over the last few weeks, while I've been feeling somewhat "poorly," I have given a lot of thought to food. You may have noticed that in my blog already.

Part of the issue is that my appetite was pretty much non-existent during my illness. That did contribute to me losing about seven pounds, which didn't hurt me much. In fact, I could stand to lose a few more seven-pound increments, but I would prefer to do it while I am not sick. So my decision has been to continue eating somewhat sparingly, while increasing my activity levels (which also shouldn't be too difficult, given that my activity level was pretty much limited to dragging myself from the couch to my bed for two and a half weeks).

As I've gotten older I have found it is harder and harder to lose much weight. Sometimes I feel pretty good about myself regardless of what the scale says, while other times I am totally grossed out and determined to fight it. Honestly, I don't think I overeat all that much, except when my mother makes me a yellow birthday cake with Sanders caramel frosting and accompanies it with Breyer's peach ice cream. Then, I have to admit, I'm a pig. But since my birthday comes but once a year, I should be able to make up for it, don't you think?

Enough about me--back to the food part. I have decided that one of the reasons it is so hard to eat reasonably is that everyone expects us to overeat. We have, indeed, been Super-sized. (I still haven't seen that movie, but it's on my Netflix queue.)

I am not advocating McDonald's food ... but when I was a kid, and I used to go to McDonald's, I used to get a hamburger or cheeseburger, a packet of fries, and a drink. No one ever claimed it was good nutrition, but it was more or less a reasonable (and reasonably priced) meal. My dad might have eaten two burgers, or picked a couple of extra fries out of our little packets, but none of the rest of us would have considered it.

Somewhere along the way, in order to maximize their profits, Mickey D's came up with the idea of "super sizing" their meals. A one-burger meal was packaged into the "two-cheeseburger meal" (which I think is non-existent, now ... instead, you can get your Big Mac or some other enormous burger instead). You could size-up your appetite with an ever-larger packet of fries, and a bigger soft drink than any of us should consider consuming.

And that's just one of the reasons that I no longer will eat at what I call the Wal-Mart of Fast Food. I won't get into factory farms, over-processed foods, the corn (and corn-syrup) issue, or any of the other multitudes of reasons that I don't want them to have my money. Just from a food standpoint, there's no good reason to be eating anything that McDonald's offers.

Anyway, pretty soon everyone caught on to the super-size or biggie-size trend and now it's pretty much expected that you will always get more food than you really need any time you order out. And because our parents always taught us to never waste food, and to clean our plates, we obediently consume larger and larger portions, until we now expect to be eating more at each meal. And if we don't get "more," we complain loudly that the portions are too small. (I won't mention any names, David.)

The other evening we went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants and I got the broccoli alfredo special. It was great--but I brought home enough leftovers for two more lunches. (Well, oops, or at least a midnight snack for Stuart.) Then, at Sunday breakfast, I ordered an omelet--wondering all along, why does an omelet need three eggs? I would never eat three eggs in any other combination. The accompanying plate of hash browns were delicious but also excessive. I felt bad "wasting" the remaining food, but I knew if I kept eating I would not only be uncomfortable ... I would be setting myself up for more and more consumption in the days to come, which would pack that seven pounds (and more) right back on me before I knew what was happening.

The over-consumption trend isn't limited to prepared food. This morning on television I saw commercials for 10-for-$10 sales at Kroger. Stock up and save! Sure, buy 10 of everything just because you can. Don't forget to eat all that food before it spoils. (Or maybe it won't spoil because of all the preservatives in it?) And then you can run back to Kroger and buy 10 more.

Yeah, they say "Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for tomorrow we may die ..." But I guess I'd rather live a little bit longer, so I'll try to be merry while eating (and drinking) more reasonably. I'll let you know how it goes.