Day 29: More on Social Outings

I went to another social outing last night, and decided once again to declare the day a write-off in terms of dieting. In addition to eating what was set in front of me, I downed a few "gifts" I had received, which I had stuck in the fridge, after it was over. Like the last time, I prepared for this ditch-the-diet night by not eating anything until the dinner in question.

With regard to food items that you can't refuse, I see four choices:

1. Work them into the diet by substituing some for regular meals;
2. Eating any "food donations" all at once on a specially designated off-the-diet day;
3. Storing them and passing them along to someone else, perhaps to the same person who gave them to you;
4. Letting them go to waste.

In the course of this diet, I've relied upon options 1,2 and 3, but not option 4. There's just something in me that hesitiates before getting rid of food. For a calorie-counter-based diet, option 2 might be the only practicable one if the "gifts" don't have a calorie count attached to them. Option 3 isn't practical for perishables, and perishability may cold-deck option 1. Option 3, with a food bank as the recipient, isn't practicable unless you've gotten canned goods or similar imperishables.

With regard to diet-bending social obligations in general, the possibility of them is one of the reasons why I deliberately "cheated" about two weeks into my own diet. It was a commitment test to see if I could fall off the tracks, get back on, and then stay on. With regard to abort-the-diet days or evenings, I suggest that a self-test of this sort should be done and passed before breaking routine in this way.

To get back to social outings: if going out-of-routine is unavoidable, I have two tips which'll help shave off the calories you have to consume:

a) Ask for meat;
b) Go to a place that has a dog.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: Despite the diet-bust last night, I weighed in at 232 pounds.