Monday 28 December 2009

Stuffed

So I went absolutely bananas (well, bananas would at least have been vaguely healthy) at the Christmas buffet. I haven't seen that much food in one place in years, if ever. The Rosenbergs have a huge island in their kitchen, and it was covered completely with food three times over: once for appetizers, a couple of hours later for mains, and after that, desserts.

"And this year they couldn't even contain it," observed my sister, who is a veteran of these events. (This was my first time.) "It spilled over onto the counters and the stove."

I can't really blame BN2 for this one (though I did receive an upsetting text from him just before we left, and – here is another bruise that needs healing – panicked about how angry he would be if I didn't respond in a timely fashion, or didn't respond at all. As my brother-in-law says: "There has to be a last text at some point.") But I guess maybe I can blame boredom and feeling trapped. The room was full of Rosenberg family and friends I didn't know – and, in the words of my sister's husband, also a veteran, probably didn't really want to know -- plus a newly engaged couple plus my pregnant sister and her husband. Also I was freezing cold – so cold my brother-in-law and sister suggested I drink a glass of red wine to warm up. (I stopped at two glasses.)

I wasn't able to exercise Christmas Day due to circumstances that really were beyond my control. So I arrived at the buffet about 6 pm already feeling a bit anxious. I'd told myself I wasn't going to have any of the appetizers except maybe some shrimp, but after about 45 minutes of being too cold and too bored, that quickly spiralled into a taste of just about everything: cheese, crab balls, pigs in blankets (how I love anything in pastry), little bacon and cheese pastries, some kind of grilled meat.

And somewhere in there I discovered the bowls of chocolate covered almonds and chocolate nut clusters. And I went, um, cocoa loco. Quite possibly at least 10 of each. This I ate in spite of – or maybe because of – all of the desserts I caught a glimpse of when someone opened the door to the garage.

"Beth, there's so much dessert coming the chocolate really isn't worth it," said my sister, who's suffering from morning sickness and has lost her taste for anything sweet. Somehow I managed not to be annoyed by this and eat out of defiance and instead to take it in the spirit it was intended – my sister, who cannot understand binge-eating and how beyond control it can make me, trying to be helpful.

I didn't eat any more chocolate clusters. But I did attack the mains with a vengeance: corned beef, short ribs, kugel (the one thing I really could justify overeating as it's not something I'm able to get very often), mushroom risotto, spinach and feta pie, pasta with seafood. (I did manage to skip a few things, including all the potato dishes – there's potato aplenty in England.) I was sneaking bits into my mouth before I even sat down at the table – something I always used to do when I didn't want anyone to know exactly how much I was eating.

It wasn't pretty.

"How are you doing?" said my sister at one point.

"I feel like everyone's staring at me – the fat girl who's taking too much food."

"I think you're the smallest person here," said my sister, who was tugging uncomfortably at her shirt, complaining that – at seven weeks pregnant – it was already too tight around her chest. This would be more comforting did my sister not have a long history of trying (whatever weight I was) to convince me to eat more (I think) so that she could feel better about whatever she was eating. And yes, she did make the helpful comment about the chocolate clusters, but – like my grandmother – my sister has always been of the pushing-food-yet-telling-me-to-lose-weight school.

"No, I'm not," I said.

"OK, maybe the second smallest," said my sister.

I'd call dessert an unmitigated disaster, except that it wasn't. I was already full when it was brought out, and although I ate far too much of it, I was vaguely strategic about it. Someone raved about the ice cream pie, but when I heard it was just basically chocolate ice cream on crust, I passed it up. I got one of the homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches my brother-in-law had spent several minutes on the car ride over raving about, but really, they were not-fabulous homemade chocolate chip cookies with not-fabulous chocolate ice cream (if they'd had vanilla, maybe I would have finished mine instead of just taking a bite). I did take a dessert-sized plate with a sample of just about everything else: the cinnamon coffee cake (probably the best thing there – in retrospect I'd have done well with a hunk of that and nothing else), banana bread, cream puffs, banana cream pie, oreo cheesecake, lemon bars, chocolate trifle (well, not trifle in the English sense – more like a mess of chocolate and cream)...

I didn't finish everything on my plate, partially thanks to my brother-in-law R.

"Let's get up now," he suggested, pushing his plate away. Which is probably how I was "only" up 7 pounds the next morning, instead of about 17. Seriously, I was lucky – had I not gotten up then it's very likely I would have been ill and spent the whole car ride home counting down the minutes. Instead I felt over-full but not lay-down-on-the-floor-and-die miserable.

The next day I woke up still full, and feeling huge. This, of course, was not helped by someone asking if I were the twin who was pregnant with triplets.

***

I have to note I've been averaging about a binge a week since Halloween. Not good. Yes, there has been a lot of stress in my life, and yes, everyone overeats in the holiday season. But I need to break this weekly cycle, especially as I've got several long plane and bus trips ahead of me (Miami-DC, DC-NY, DC-London)... My goal is not to binge for the rest of this trip, which would put me at 11 days clean by the time I'm back in London.

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