Not a total disaster

Last night we went out for dinner - Chinese.

Thankfully it was not the "all you can eat buffet" - they don't do that on a Friday, much to DH & DS's dismay. I love it too, but not when I am trying to lose weight. It's too tempting as I like too many things and you can order at will.

So it was 'a la carte' last night and we ordered the mixed hors d'oeuvres which consisted of

1. chicken satay
2. spare ribs in a crispy coating
3. sesame prawn toast
4. crispy seaweed
5. wantons
6. mini spring roll

Now, eating out is a fun thing to do for everyone and even though I am banded I want to be able to do this still- I don't have to worry too much with the band at the moment as its normally ok for me to eat a pretty much anything I like as its not that tight. There is some restriction there, but for me the band just stops me feeling hungry even though I am consuming less food - which is great and the adjustment level is just what I can handle right now. 

So out of the above - which unbanded/unfilled/uncaring I would eat 1 piece of everything - I ate half the seaweed, 1 spring roll, 4 pieces of prawn toast (cos no one else likes it). The boys polished off everything else.

We followed this with aromatic crispy duck in pancakes with hoisin sauce. I had 3 pancakes - light on duck, heavy on cucumber and spring onion.

I had 2 glasses of red wine (which tasted like vinegar) and a pot of jasmine tea.

I find that Chinese is the best food for me to eat out as I can have some Chinese tea first before eating which helps warm the band up before hand and stops those mad dashes to the loos - although that has still happened on many an occasion.

Its always a bit odd to order coffee or tea with your meal for some reason in England. Why is that? Does anyone else find that its just not the done thing? At home as a kid we always had tea with our dinner, but it seems its a bit odd to order this with your meal at a restaurant unless its an all day breakfast. The last thing I want to do after dinner is drink coffee or tea on an already full tummy. I would much rather have it before - hence I have never found the 'drink before meals' banded routine difficult. Sorry got a bit off the point. Its just it only just struck me. No one would mind if you ordered tea - its just no one does. How funny. Oh well.

So yeah, the dinner - we finished our duck and finished our meal there. We were all absolutely full. At the buffet we would then have ordered the following for sure: 

• crispy shredded beef
• chicken fried rice
• sweet and sour chicken Cantonese style
• beef in black bean sauce
• king prawns in ginger
• and possibly something else that DS wanted

The prawns in ginger... always a funny one. I had this dish years ago and it was DELICIOUS. I have never ever been able to find it the same again since. It is always a bitter disappointment - chewy stringy overcooked prawns in nice sauce, or delicious well cooked prawns in a rank sauce which ruins it all, or the sauce is yum, the prawns are cooked well, but they taste too fishy or something like that. *sigh*

No one else likes prawns except me, so whenever I order it, the whole dish would go to waste if I didn't eat it - however minging it is! Because I feel bad about leaving food I have ordered - which I know will just be thrown away if I leave it, and so as not to appear rude like it was horrible - cos they always ask 'you don't like the prawns' - I try and eat most of it anyway, and then regret it because I haven't eaten my favorite dishes cos I am way too full.

Oh the conundrum!!

It is deeply tragic that i care so much about this, but there we go. We're not banded for nothing!

Anyway, we didn't order any of these things, because we were full and satisfied so I was saved from the peril of the neverending prawns in ginger debacle.

So we all came home and were happy in our hearts. Or not.

The evil scale demon lashed its tongue at me as I sat watching Shortland Street. I was happily engrossed when it caught my eye - sitting there on the floor giving me evils. It's such a bastard. Being overweight really is a true eating disorder. Its as bad as being anorexic or bulimic - we are all messed in the head about food and abuse it at will and let it rule our lives until we decide enough is enough. But even when we decide to stop the craziness, the mental anguish/debating/wrangling still pervades. There was NO REASON for me to do what I did next. I was full. satisfied. not even THINKING about food.

The scale triggered my eating. It grabbed my mind like a vice. I suddenly felt rubbish about not losing weight this week - even though I had totally put it to bed in my mind way back at the beginning of the day. The mind is so powerful and I instantly thought "well I ruined it all anyway because of the Chinese"

Now let this be a lesson to you ALL.

I had NOT ruined it all.

I got up at 6am this morning to write to my future self - and to you all - to warn me/you - if I had not eaten another thing - gone to bed, right then - I would have been fine.

I had consumed 2395 calories yesterday - that included the Chinese and the wine and my lunch and everything. I was only 350 calories over my limit. This was FINE.

But the fucking diet devil deceived me into believing that I had bust everything anyway, so why hold back. What was the point? You feel rubbish. Comfort yourself. You poor thing.

Ok - the title of this post is absolutely true. It could of been A LOT worse but only wasn't for the sheer lack of food in the house and the time of day - 12pm = little 'house of chocolate and crisps' shop shut.

Feeling like shit for eating out, thinking the day was irredeemable - I get DH to make me a coleslaw sandwich. And after I had polished that off - ANOTHER one!

So 2395 calories becomes 3000. In 15 minutes.

1000 calories over my goal.

It was so quick, so easy!

But, the reason I am writing this at 7:45 in the morning (I started it at 6:30) is because I didn't want today to be messed up by the FDD. The FDD also didn't want me to add my foods up with livestrong, but I came down here - the whole house is still asleep - and carefully remembered every morsel and put it on livestrong.

The reason my day went to shit was because I had no idea how many calories I had consumed at the Chinese Restaurant. When we came home I did not go and record it down on Livestrong. I was not in control.

Its the not knowing. Thinking you have gone over the top and you might as well give up today. Well I am going to try and remember this and know that a Chinese meal out does not tip me over the top of my calorie goals. If I had not had the wine, I would have still been under for the day!

So I need to especially remember this on Sunday after the Italian. I must go careful, but its not going to be a crisis.

I must not let the FDD win!

This was a necessary vent. I am still strong. Don't worry :-) 3000 calories is not the end of the world. I need to eat 3000 calories a day to maintain my weight, so I will just have slowed my progress a little, but I can rationalise it out. For some of you it might seem that I am over analyzing things, but I must tell you that I need to do this, have the control, or I lose my fight. Its how I do things when I am on track.