Yesterday was a pre-designated cheat day. It was my daughter’s 14th birthday (Happy Birthday, Megan!), and she had asked a few weeks ago if we could go to Carrabba’s for dinner so that she could have calamari. (Yes, this is the same child who won’t eat chicken noodle soup, and yet, she asks to be fed deep-fried squid. And she doesn’t just eat the ones that look like glorified onion rings, she goes for the pieces with all the little tentacles. Go figure.) For anyone who doesn’t know, Carrabba’s is a fairly decent Italian restaurant. Now, can anyone tell me the one type of food that most people expect to eat in an Italian restaurant? If you shouted out ‘pasta!’, not only are you correct, but anyone within earshot is probably right now questioning your sanity….
So here I am, on a low carb diet, faced with the knowledge that I am going to an Italian restaurant…and there is no way on earth I’m going to leave that place without eating some form of pasta. That’s when I decided for that day only, that meal only, it would be ok to cheat, so long as I didn’t go hogwild.
We get to the restaurant and are seated right away. Me being the lush of the group (the ‘group’ being myself, the now-14-year-old, my mother, and my stepfather), I order an Italian Sangria to drink while they all order tea or soda. It was good too…mmmm mmmmm….With our drinks also comes a basket of bread, another diet no-no. I allowed myself one slice. When the calamari came, I had maybe 5 or 6 pieces. That’s when I started to realize that I wasn’t hungry. At all. In fact, I was feeling incredibly full. No, no, no! I have spaghetti on the way!!!
My salad comes and I take no more than 2 or 3 bites of it, hoping against all hope that I can save what little room I have left for my entree. No dice. The waitress brings out a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs the size of the Grand Canyon, and all I can do is look at it. I force myself to take 3 bites, and afterwards I feel like I ate a 7 course meal.
It makes no sense. It had been at least 4-5 hours since lunch time. I should have been at least mildly hungry. The only answer I can come up with is guilt. Maybe subconsciously I was so guilty over that fact that I planned to cheat on my diet that my brain decided to tell my stomach that I wasn’t hungry. Stupid brain. I wanted some spaghetti!
I did at least manage to eat a slice (ok two, but the second one was really small!) of ice cream cake later at my mother’s house. I guess it’s true when they say there’s always room for ice cream! The best part of the story – when I got on the scale this morning, it read 192.5…that brings me to 6.5 pounds lost so far!