I realised last night how I got so fat!

[Chris]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

Now, I find this such a funny coincidence. Just a few minutes ago I was in the staff room assembling my lunch salad. It's the usual, with two cups of salad greens, and, today, I was adding three ounces of ham, a few ounces of grated cheese, some halved cherry tomatoes and mayo. A co-worker looked in my bowl when I was tossing it, and said, "Wow, that's a huge salad. Is that for two days?"

When I came back to my desk -- with my salad -- this thread about huge portions was still up!

[cleochatra]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

Parents also have that uncanny tendency towards letting us know that all the food that doesn't get eaten doesn't go to starving kids in Africa (though the food that gets eaten even though we're not even hungry and is sitting in our right buttock didn't quite make it to those starving kids, either).

[Jes]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

I hear you all. I am Spanish from Argentina and let me tell you we live to eat!! When you think about it it's kind of grose but it's the truth. When I go to my parents house she tells my husband how skinng he is and that she is going to make him nice and chunky..lol...then she looks at me and literally tells me that I am fat and need to lose weight! Yea, at first I cried so many times, I reched a point when I didn't even want to go visit them but I know she sayes it because she cares, all though she could find a better way of saying it. Oh well...what can you do. Now when I go over I bring my oun food and if she doesn't like it too bad

[changing]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

These extreme portions were definitely the rule in my family...

Something else though that we did that I wonder if the rest of you experienced:
racing.

Yeah, we would have races to see who could eat their food the fastest (I am 1 of 4 children)... the winner would often get a prize (something cheesy, but more bragging rights than anything else). Anybody else have this standard in their home?

[Chris]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

These extreme portions were definitely the rule in my family...

Something else though that we did that I wonder if the rest of you experienced:
racing.

Yeah, we would have races to see who could eat their food the fastest (I am 1 of 4 children)... the winner would often get a prize (something cheesy, but more bragging rights than anything else). Anybody else have this standard in their home?

We didn't do that, but I knew others who did. I remember some kids at school doing that, as well.

Funny, isn't it, how so many continental Europeans will linger over their mid-day or evening meal for hours, and yet, in general, they are MUCH thinner than the Americans and even the Brits? Hmm, maybe yet another factor!

[2big4mysize]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

it is mind boggling when the realization hits. I laugh now when we go to all you can eat buffets and I order off the menu instead cause I know I can't eat most of it and wouldn't want it all while my dinner companions are on their 3rd-4th plate I'm still waiting for mine from the kitchen.

[not2late]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

Oh 2Big I know what you mean.

Before Atkins I could eat alot of food. And I thought that was perfectly normal. It was perfectly normal to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and eat about 3 or 4 platefuls of food. But now.....the very thought of eating as much as I did back then is very sickening! Quite frankly, I'm kind of ashamed of myself for loading up like that in the past....no wonder I was the size of a small car!

Whenever I go to restaurants, I always end up taking home a doggy bag. A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to Ruth's Chris' Steakhouse. I ordered a fillet mignon and managed to eat about 1/3 of it there. I had the rest of if for lunch and dinner the next day.

I have to admit, I'm saving alot of money with my new appetite!

Chris made a good obeservation----eating slowly to enjoy your food. I used to eat quickly. As a result I had to eat "alot" in order to even taste the food. Now I eat slower so I can actually taste the food. And I find I need to eat less because I am tasting and savoring the food I eat.

[staziaw]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

I would like to chime in to say that I agree with most of the stories on here -grandparents demanding that I eat seconds and thirds, snacks, desserts, all of it! And I was skinny as a kid! But it taught me that food was love and love was food and it was all good. NOT!!!

Now I generally use a salad plate as my dinner plate and my dinner plate as a serving platter!

Crazy stuff, man . . . crazy!

XO
Stacy

[choeve]

Re: I realised last night how I got so fat!

Richt I know the feeling. My mom literally, and this is no lie, used to send me to the corner store to buy 2 candy bars for each of us when she wanted something sweet. And not the little ones either the big sized ones. My dad wanted meat, potatoes, one other usually starchy vegetable like peas, carrots, or corn, and bread for dinner almost every night. We ate in record time, which is a habit I still am trying to break, eating way to fast. i swear we sold sit down to eat dinner and 10 minutes later be done and clearing the table. And we never left food on our plate, we always had to clean our plate and eat everything my mother gave us. And you would not believe the amount of food she and my grandmother made for holidays. And it wasn't just a one day thing it was for the whole holiday season. Cakes, pies, cookies, candy around from Thanksgiving all they way thru to New Years. And then you can guess what happened next we went on a so called diet the first of the year. LOL I was put on my first diet by my mom when I was probably in the 5th or 6th grade if not earlier.