Behaving at the Buffet
Every once in awhile, Steven and I go to Sweet Tomatoes, our favorite buffet. We like it because they have a huge salad bar right when you walk in – that is the focus of the place. You make your salad and pay, then there is a little baked goods counter, soup counter, pasta counter, and sweets counter.
I have such a hard time going there.
Even though I make my healthy salad, and steer clear of the baked goods and grab a little dish of pasta… I just gobble it down. I get into some weird “buffet-dining” mentality that I need to eat my food as fast as possible so I can get up for more. And I always get more.
I’ve actually gotten better at eating slower at Sweet Tomatoes (and at home, and other restaurants), but every time I go there, I eat a lot more than I should. I don’t get a stomach ache or anything like that, but I just eat too much. Because it’s a buffet. And I feel all weird and rushed. And I feel deprived. And sad. Sad that I am not eating as much as I used to at a buffet, before I started caring about my health.
Today I was thinking about what it would be like to stop counting calories and just listen to my hunger. What would happen if I ate when I was hungry, rather than sticking to the allotted meals and snacks I have set up for myself throughout the day? Would I eat less? Would I eat more? Would I lose weight? Would I gain weight?
I really want to do that – stop counting, stop worrying. Stop thinking about it. But I don’t think I am ready. I really don’t think I am ready to live that guilt-free of a life. I have been having some binging issues lately. I’ve been avoiding some emotions, and eating them out instead. I feel that, until I conquer emotional eating, I may not be ready to listen to my hunger, because I am not really listening to it. I am letting my emotions dictate my eating patterns. And that just feels awful.
I am just going to see how the next few weeks go. This is a stressful time for me. I’d still like to lose some weight, and I think counting calories may be the way to do that. Oh, and avoiding the buffet.
On the side: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE someone help me with wordpress. I could not login to my admin panel tonight for a very long time. It just kept resetting every time I entered my login and password. I tried a million things to fix it, and nothing worked very well. I am not sure what finally got it.
Themocracy
Usually when that happens, it’s a problem with your server, not you and not WordPress. Your hosting company may have had the server your blog resides on down for maintenance. Or it could have crashed, and taken some time to get up again. That’s happened to me before.
I’ve been learning to listen to my hunger on Medifast. The biggest learning experience has been paying attention to my body signaling it’s had enough food. Before, I was stuffing so fast I smothered the signal! I’m amazed now how little food I actually need.
Emotional eating, sadly, is still an ongoing battle for me. It’s so hard to undo a lifetime habit. Best of luck to you in your efforts, hon!
Ick, I don’t know anything about wordpress sorry 🙁
Oh we just got a Sweet Tomatos here in Dallas and I have only eaten there once. It was pretty good, so I can see how it can be evil (ok my words LOL)
i thought i was the only one who had problems with buffets… something in me is almost ingrained so that when i go to a buffet i just feel the need to eat and eat and never stop… plus, you know, i have to make sure i get my monies worth!! lol
emotional eating is hard thing to tackle but at least you have recognized that you are “emotional eating” and that is a great first step in turning over a new leaf!!! it makes me sad that the holidays are supposed to be such a happy time but it seems that for most people the holidays are stressful!! i know you have a lot of other things going on too though… just know that your blogger friends and sisters are here and if you need anything you know where to find us!!!
i don’t know anything at all about wordpress so i’m no help there!!
i hope you and Steven have a great time this weekend!!!
=^..^=
I would have the same problem at Sweet Tomatoes. I have the same problem when I go to a breakfast buffet..its like I have to have a taste of everything before its gone. Like I’m going to miss out on something. It’s weird, its like I have no control.
You know, you are getting good at recognizing your behaviors and things so that has to be helping – I think anything that you thing might work is well worth the try. Just make sure to give it a good solid amount of time – say at least three weeks to see if you get any results. Don’t get discouraged. You are trying and that is already better than not trying! 🙂 Hugs to you!
Sorry about wordpress – but it sounds like you got the right answers above already.
I agree that you are soooooo much more in tune with the mind/emotions/eating thing than a lot of people! That’s gotta be at least 75 percent of the battle! 🙂
I have consistently found myself eating too fast since I started working downtown. Today after lunch I got horrible stomach cramps after stuffing down a turkey sandwich. 🙁 Usually I seem to be too busy at work to snack mindlessly but this style of eating can’t be good!
SJ – I hope it was just the server. I seem to be having a lot of issues lately, and I am getting frustrated. I think it is kind of sad how little food we actually need, once we “re-find” our hunger. It tells us how much we were actually stuffing our faces before!
Felicia – Evil… and tempting!
CourtneyInControl – It’s a bad time of year to be stressed out, right? I don’t even feel like Christmas is coming up. It hasn’t really registered yet!
Gina (Mannyed) – That’s it exactly! You don’t want to go home thinking, “I wish I would have had some of ‘Fill-in-the-blank’ food” 😉
teeni – Thank you for your encouragement. You are right, that I should give things a try before I give up on them. One day doesn’t really mean anything!
diane – Oh no! I can see how going back to the office would make you start to do that. I know you can “re-learn” to eat slow again, at work 🙂
Love… LOVE Sweet Tomatoes. In California, it’s called Souplantation. I like to go there often, but it ends up being only every 3 months or so. The food is good and pretty healthy. We have another local place here called Souper Salad. (at least I’ve not seen any out of the state of Utah). It’s a bit cheaper, but not as good as Sweet Tomatoes.
The thing that irks me about buffets is how parents let their kids just do whatever… throwing food around, using their hands, etc… very bothering.
martymankins – Oh my gosh! You just hit on one of my BIGGEST pet peeves! I have seen a kid lick a spoon at Sweet Tomatoes and put it back into the serving dish. WTF?!