Normal Eating

Went out to lunch yesterday at a lovely French-influenced restaurant by the water. The rest of the table had fish and chips (posh fish and chips – I've never seen it done with salmon!) but I fancied a steak baguette with red onion compote and so had that, sans chips (mais avec salad).

The steak was cooked perfectly, the baguette was exactly as I'd imagined it (don't you hate it when you order something with a particular taste or mouth feel in mind and it's nothing like that?) and I was perfectly happy. I won't say none of the desserts looked good, but none of them spoke to me. It was too hot for a tea so I was happy sipping a diet Coke while the rest of the table indulged.

It probably didn't hurt that earlier in the day I was wearing – for the first time – my waist size 26 James jeans, which my grandmother bought for me when I saw her this summer. (For the record, they were deeply discounted at Loehmann's, otherwise my Depression-era grandmother would have wondered who'd moved the decimal point.) My friend's mum – who I don't think of as particularly overweight -- said she didn't think she could get a single thigh into my jeans. She couldn't know that probably the reason I was so pleased to hear this was because it was the sort of thing my grandmother and mother used to say about my sister while I'd be in the corner glowering. Or – more likely – trying to figure out how to sneak another cookie. Or four.

***

"You didn't ask for my opinion, but I thought that was a really large portion we got," a friend who knows about my eating struggles said on Friday night, aka the night I consumed the Mt Saint Pasta served to me.

To be fair, I occasionally have asked him when I can't begin to guess what "normal" is – crazy when you consider that he doesn't ever think twice about what he eats. But I digress.

He said he was worried about me when he thought I'd been considering pudding options (I wasn't really – just thought I was being polite listening to what was on offer.) I was furious, but couldn't figure out a way appropriately to express it.

I tried to explain that I was experimenting a bit lately – that I'd seen the problems being too rigid about my food could cause. He asked me why -- when I was already out of my routine – I'd be playing with fire. I started to try to explain, then realized I shouldn't have to. Normal eating is sometimes overeating – because you want to, because it tastes good, because any number of reasons.

Of course his comments made me want to raid the refrigerator. That, however, is not normal eating, so I didn't.