How I Don’t Want to Overeat in Restaurants
I did not survive the Great Depression, although sometimes I eat as if I ate. Despite my desire to lose weight, I have a bad habit of removing every last greasy piece of rice or supposedly decorative side dish that is placed in front of me. Breaking the habit made me feel better.
I have a great appetite, and I definitely eat more than my Steve Martin-style physique allows.
I’ve always had problems when I go to places like one of the many Texas-Mexican establishments I grew up in. If I ordered something like grilled fish tacos, I would get a plate with 30% tacos and 70% rice and beans. Basically, any good Texas-Mexican establishment will give you enough rice and beans for the whole week.
Not only was I in the habit of eating all the rice and beans, but I was taking leftover tortilla chips and some salsa and heading into town on the beans and rice of those who gave up on their plate.
However, the only plate I couldn’t get to was my wife’s. She’s smarter than me in many ways, and she developed (or at least adopted) this habit of putting a napkin on her plate whenever she starts feeling full. She calls it “raising the white flag,” as if her stomach was surrendering to an adorable pirate ship sailing on a keso throne.
As someone who likes to hunt down other people’s plates, this infuriated me at first. She covered my plate and kept me from stuffing myself with excess cheese that spilled out of stuffed shells or discarded pizza crusts.
But I’ll be damned if that doesn’t usually work, and if it doesn’t work for me.
I wish I could stay slim and feel bloated is not fun, but I often find myself in situations where I order more food than I should eat and have found that raising the checkbox often prevents me from eating more food because it makes me I ask: Am I really still hungry?
Usually the answer is no, idiot, you just ate two pounds of crayfish, half a pound of potatoes, and three ears of corn, followed by two beers.
The nicer aesthetic is to leave some room on the plate, but the pleasing aesthetic is not what you get in the most unhealthy restaurants. There must be some law somewhere that says a plate of hamburger must have an area not filled with a hamburger completely covered in fries.
I wouldn’t recommend this in every situation as it is probably impolite at a formal dinner , but at a formal dinner you probably wo n’t be served an Elvis Presley memorial combo, so you have to be good. At home, I found that just putting a napkin on my plate now triggers a reaction and makes me think I need to quickly put the leftovers in the dishes before I eat my bowl of sauce.
Just try it the next time you eat and you will feel full. Surrendering may seem ignoble on the battlefield, but when you’re in Fuddruckers, it’s quite the opposite.