Too. Much. Food.
Yesterday my dad and I were going to have lunch together, but we didn't know where we were gonna go. My dad suggested we try a place neither of us had been to: a place called Burger Fuel. So we met up, made our way to Burger Fuel, and having never been there before, I used my knowledge of other popular burger places to make a guess as to what might be a good lunch for me.
Big mistake.
What I ended-up doing was underestimating the size of the burgers they served, so was very surprised when I was given one of the largest burgers I had ever seen. I only just managed to eat it all, before walking ever so slowly back to work. OK, 'walking' is the wrong word for it; 'waddling' is a better description of the movement I used to get myself back to work.
Suffice it to say, I didn't feel hungry again until moments before a planned dinner with my friend... where I made the same mistake all over again.
This time the place was called Lone Star. Like Burger Fuel, I had never been here before, so it was a good day for me to try new places. And just like at Burger Fuel, I underestimated the size of the portions they served here. Despite being warned by my friend who sounded like a Lone Star veteran, I only had myself to blame when they placed in-front of me the largest plate of food I had ever seen.
This time I never finished my food, nor did my friend finish hers. It didn't seem possible for any normal human being (that is, a person with 1 stomach) to complete the meals they served here in one sitting. I must've made it only 1/3 of the way through my meal before my insides just gave up.
Enough! Enough! I could hear my stomach say. You've already had 1 huge meal that almost killed me, now you want to do it AGAIN in THE SAME 24 HOUR PERIOD!!!??
During the walk home I poured all of my concentration into not throwing up. I was probably waddling again, but I didn't care; I would have used any movement, no matter how ridiculous, that had the lowest chance of puncturing a hole in my stomach, and the highest chance of getting me home. If it's good enough for the penguins, it's good enough for me.
So that was pretty much the recurring theme for yesterday. What makes this whole ordeal even stupider is that this isn't the first time this has ever happened to me.
Rewind to almost a year ago. I was being invited out to a group dinner by someone I had recently met through the ceroc dance classes I had just started attending (I've called this person 'amazing baking girl' in a previous post, so will continue to call her so here). Amazing baking girl took us all out to place called HK BBQ which I haven't been to before (seeing a pattern here? New restaurants must be a precursor to gluttonous behaviour). But it wasn't HK BBQ that killed me. You see, everyone wanted dessert afterwards, which HK BBQ doesn't do. Down the road however, was a place called Strawberry Fare - a place that had earned almost legendary status with me after hearing so many great stories about it from so many other people - and that was where we went next.
Not only was Strawberry Fare another place I had never been to, but it had one of the best cheesecakes I had ever eaten. Yes, I ate ALL of my cheesecake against the advice of my stomach.
Stop eating! it would say, You've reached capacity! We'll have to store any further food in your throat if you don't stop! STFU stomach!, I would tell it, After all these years of hearing about this place I am FINALLY here so I am going to enjoy it and let this magical cheesecake flow through my veins!
Well, you can guess what happened next. Waddling was involved, as was concentrating on breathing in, breathing out, and entering the PIN for my card between breaths, so that I wouldn't collapse from the shock that my body was undergoing in reaction to my new weight.
It's a story that amazing backing girl remembers well to this very day. I remember it too, yet I never let the lessons learned that night guide my choices at lunch or dinner yesterday. It's like a blindspot in my knowledge, and something I may well repeat and may well be the death of me, provided my statistically short lifespan doesn't kill me first.
So why do some lessons stick with us and alter our behaviour to prevent us making those mistakes again, while others get missed no matter how many times we repeat the mistakes?