The Girl Who Ate Everything

Food.

Yup, another food post...obviously.

I ate too much today. I did that two days ago. Note to self: leave wallet at home tomorrow, and perhaps every other day I feel like going out into the calorie-dense microcosm of NYC.

"A fat man's gotta plan." I keep that in mind, but I don't follow it (that's not the exact quote but it's close enough). I need to get some advice from Calvin Trillin's friend, Fats Goldberg. He weighed 300-something pounds during his college years but then dropped about half his weight through his own diet.

I hate, hate, hate eating so much. There's no underlying reason to why I eat so much besides that I (un)fortunately have enough money to eat a lot and I don't get pukingly full when any normal person would. Remember, I'm a 5 foot tall girl. If I were a tall guy this wouldn't be an issue.

I brought my wallet with me so I could buy a ticket to the Decemberists concert next week. HOORAY! CONCERT! But I brought too much money, methinks. I spent about $20 today, partially taken from my campus cash. Here's the list of food:

• a navel orange (from home)
• 0.5 liter bottle of Poland Spring (from home)
• 3 raisin walnut rolls ($2, I shared one with a friend but I still ate at least 2.5 of them and they were pretty substantial as a meal)
• a large chocolate chip cookie ($1.50, from the Greenmarket--it was good but not worth getting again)
• about 3/4ths pound of fruit salad and cucumber salad (~$3 since the salad bar is on sale at Wholesome Market)
• a 750 ml bottle of Glaceau electrolyte water (~$2, never tried it before but I was curious since I just did research for a presentation about bottled water)
• a scoop of vanilla-cookie dough-oreo ice cream from Emack and Bolios ($4; This was a total impulse eat as my friend and I had time before our next classes and it was hot and...we hadn't eaten out together since last year. The ice cream wasn't bad but it wasn't worth $4, although I'll admit that I didn't get a very adventurous flavor. I think Mary's Dairy is better and Chinatown Ice Cream Factory has cooler flavors, but this was really close by on West Houston Street.)
• a pack of cooked spinach with sesame seed oil ($3 from Sunrise Mart; it's one of those Korean appetizer type things if you have any idea what i'm talking about
• 250 ml bottle of Pellegrino (~$1 for the perfect serving; do you ever crave Pellegrino? APPARENTLY, I DO)
• 6 piece avocado and cucumber sushi (~$3 from Sunrise Mart; apparently their sushi is 50% off whenever they feel like it)

I didn't have to get those last three items at all. I was walking home and had to backtrack to go to Sunrise Mart. First I went to Gourmet Garage because I've never been to the one on Broome Street. They had a SALE ON COOKIES. Good god. I was thinking of going there tomorrow morning as part of my "chocolate chip cookie adventure" but god no, I can't bring any money out tomorrow (I was also planning to go to Au Bon Pain tomorrow, but that's out; when I plan, I plan, but I change my mind a lot obviously). So I didn't need to eat dinner but I did and I don't feel better different from doing so. I mean, I'm obviously fatter but ...

...was I genuinely hungry at all today? NOPE. Don't think so. I just like eating. I wasn't unhungry nor was I hungry. New York City is the worst place to be as a visual-cue triggered eater. Last night while walking home through Soho I looked at all the young New Yorkers eating their late meals in dimly lit raucous open-air restaurants and it looked all fun and good, but I can't imagine doing that. First thing, no friends to eat out with that late and second thing, I eat too much. By myself. Without the added social factor.

I don't regret eating ice cream today as that was a social thing but I regret everything else. I can't imagine how many calories I ate today but I'm sure it was over 2000, and that's too much. I think I walked about 4-5 miles (walking to school with backpack now equal morning sweat...lovely) as I walked to Union Square from my dorm and walked there again from campus later (which only equates to maybe a 10-15 minute walk, but...muh). Walking home is the greatest as the weather is perfect and there's no sun to fry you. Walking home is the win. Walking to school is the crap.

But can you imagine what would happen if I did walk? That'd be a few hundred calories un-burned. Then again, if I didn't walk I wouldn't have gone past Sunrise Mart and eating that extra 500+ calories (a total guess, but avocados = fat. I didn't want fish).

I don't feel as guilty today as I did on Monday night because I ate healthier food today. And how much water did I drink? And I didn't eat completely dry food. But still. I'm wondering if I should go back to eating loaves of bread beacuse one leaf generall lasts all day and leaves me stuff. The problem is that I'd need to bring my wallet with me to buy bread from the place I want to. I could just bring enough money for that loaf but tomorrow my food communications class is doing recipe testing, which means that food should suffice for the whole day and I won't need more money.

I'd love to get chocolate babka but I can't eat it by myself. I need someone to take half of it, figuring someone out there would want chocolate babka. I'll pay for it, I just don't want the whole thing. I heard the one from Dean and Deluca is good.

...okay, nevermind. I shouldn't bu it at all! HOW COME I DON'T HAVE JEWISH FRIENDS HERE? (sob) No wait, that's for the best. Really. Yes.

I talk to my mum on the phone about all this because I honestly have no one else to rant to who would have any idea what the hell my problem is (not that my mum knows), but she can't help much. I have the feeling she doesn't like hearing me rant, and I can't blame her. She must feel bad for having a stupid daughter. The conclusion is always the same: just eat less. Okay. Right. Um. I major in food studies, let's not forget that. I spent my last class tonight thinking about whether to get dinner or not and we were doing presentations on TRENDS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY. Hellooo, visual cue! To be honest, if I didn't have food management class on Wednesday nights I may still want to go out and eat on Wednesday nights. But it sure doensn't help.

I feel like a blob of un-health. I feel like I should be more guilty than I actually am. My mum said I concentrate on food because I don't have enough intellectual activities or interests to occupy my mind. She's right about the second thing but I don't think that's WHY I concentrate on food. I happen to like eating too much and it's bad for me, I'll acknowledge that. I'm also a food studies major, which is not a great idea but it has led to web-related internships (in the summer, most likely). I've never been intellectual but I haven't been obsessed with food my whole life.

The food obsession blew up after raw food, but I was REALLY UNHEALTHY before then so I had to go on raw food. I'm surprised I haven't gotten really sick since then. I suppose it'll take a while to junk up my body. Seriously, I had the worst mucus problem (I tried loads of non-invasive things to get rid of it) and since going on raw food it has completely disappeared. I can't explain it with any science; I must've gotten healthier during that time.

My mum said I could eat something "bad" once a week but that's probably it. I tried that for a while and completely abandoned it after I decided I wanted to eat things with people. But now it's gotten to the point where I hardly eat with people, thus the only reason I indulge is to fulfill my own gluttonous desires. That's kind of...wrong. Bad. It's a good time to go back to mainly raw food but god, I sure love those chocolate chip cookies.

Even though I won't bring my wallet to school tomororw, I still have $40 of campus cash. I plan on staying on campus most of the day so I'll probably feel like using it at some point or another. Damn. I can't wait to deplete it. Maybe I should use it to buy lots of lip balm and toothpaste or something.

...this is the end. Monday was a worse day but now I'm just scaring myself. No self-control. Why. WHY? I wish I had some kind of psychological explanation but I've got nothing. I don't have any friends with a similar problem and most of my friends are slimmer than me (proportionally, as I'm shorter than most of em). I wish I ALWAYS felt guilty about eating but it generally only happens after I've finished whatever I've eaten, not during the process. When it happens while I actually eat, I just want to cry. It hasn't happened yet but ...eh. Maybe someday.

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According to the USDA, I'm fucked! HA HA HA!

Just kidding. It's hard to trust what the USDA says (methinks they're more for the agriculture industry than...people), especially when all you tell them is your age, gender, and activity level. I don't consider walking to and from school part of regular activity, so it's EXTRA! YES.

I eat way more grains and fruit than I'm "supposed" to and not enough milk, meat/beans or veggies. Joy.

If there's one thing I like about this site its the food photos. They show you what a serving looks like and it's kind of nice. In my opinion there's a huge difference between fruit juice and a piece of fruit but the guidelines have to be easy to follow so everyone can understand them. I guess people who are smart enough would figure out that they can't "fulfill" their fruit requirement by drinking lots of juice.