July 29 food and psychology

Yesterday I ate like a pig but it was mostly healthy.  I've been eating too much for several days now but I seem to just poop it away.  I think it's better to eat less and poop less though.  The psychology of my eating too much is that I'm in all these social settings and I don't want to feel deprived so I am well-prepared with my own food, and it's turning out that I'm being provided with lots of healthy vegan food in addition.  So I'm eating it all and getting very stuffed.  Part of my not wanting to feel deprived is I worry I'll be bad and eat unhealthy (vegan) stuff.  I think this is a good plan.  I guess I just have to not eat all the stuff I'm bringing myself.   That's what I'm doing today, so far I haven't eaten my own stuff yet.

Now, a positive thing that has happened is that it's become well-known that I'm a vegan.  And most people are very accommodating of this.  The person preparing snacks for the meeting is a friend of mine and is supplying us with lots of fruit:  strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupe.   The bagels and cream cheese and donuts don't look appealing to me (I lost my taste for donuts even before I became vegan because they were too rich and made me feel yucky).  For the dinner party, which was catered, they told the caterer there's a vegan in the bunch, so she didn't put butter on anything, allowing me to eat the corn and green beans and bean salad, and she made a vegan potato salad for me.  It had oil in it but no fake mayonnaise, and it was really good--I think it was a lot better than the non-vegan one, though I didn't taste that one.  It had peas and some sort of onion like things  and some other sort of peas, and of course potatoes.  There was a very good bean salad too.  It was an excellent meal and I ate tons.  The sweet corn was great.  And I finished it with watermelon.  I was so full though.  But I ate a pre-meal before going there, a salad.  It wasn't a big pre-meal.  See the hosts know me and have seen me go hungry before, once at an expensive restaurant where the waiter was not at all helpful and just offered me their greek salad without half the ingredients, charging me the full price of course.  I get insulted when expensive restaurants can't offer you something not on the menu like steamed vegetables even.  Anyway, there was salt on various things I ate last night but overall it was a delicious meal and it was worth the indulgences in salt and oil.  I'm willing to eat that stuff in small quantities on special occasions.   It was interesting when I was helping clear up the dishes, I was rinsing the plates to put in the dish washer and there was so much butter and grease on them, wow.  My hands smelled like butter for a few hours after that, and I washed them twice.  It reminds me that I do eat differently than most Americans.  But now, that stuff looks yucky to me, all that grease.

One of my lessons learned is that it's good to stick to your guns and if you are vegan, don't be willing to eat non-vegan food.  Because if you give in once you will always be expected to give in.  If you don't give in, and stick to your guns, your friends and hosts adjust over time.  Most of them seem happy to accommodate, and even if they are faking it, I'm just going to take it at face value.  If they are true friends, they are happy to accommodate.  I do things for my friends, so what's wrong with getting some nice treatment in return?

Okay, here's what I (over)ate yesterday. 

Breakfast:  delicious peach, delicious nectarine.  wow!  

snack:  watermelon

lunch:  green smoothie and breakfast smoothie! (yikes)  a beer (oops)

snack:  watermelon, lots

pre-dinner dinner:  medium salad and blueberry dressing

dinner:   a beer (oops), green beans, potato salad (two helpings), 3 ears of corn (yum!), bean salad (2 helpings), watermelon