Today was national Eat Like A Pig Day. Being patriotic, I celebrated the traditional way and ate a gut-busting (resulting in subsequent butt-gusting) quantity of food. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the holidays.
The day featured a larger than average breakfast, 2 buffet meals, and 3 desserts. Hell, let's break it down:
Breakfast (at home):
- 2 mugs of coffee
- Bagel with cream cheese and lox
- Remaining half of my daughter's bagel with cream cheese and lox (this garbage-style of eating where you clean the food from another's plate is especially pig-like and is entirely celebratory for national Eat Like A Pig Day)
Lunch (at fancy Sunday Brunch place):
- Mimosa
- Eggs Benedict except with crabcake instead of ham (one egg)
- Prime rib
- Salmon (small piece)
- Half a dozen large shrimp
- A couple slices of cheese
- Bowl of seafood stew
- Biscuit
- Leftover bacon from my daughter's plate (oink!)
- A small chocolate pastry
- Two chocolate covered strawberries
- A few slices of pineapple and some blueberries
- Cup of coffee
Afternoon
- A fig and some grapes (gotta watch my girlish figure)
- A slice of chocolate cake
Dinner (at mediocre salad buffet restaurant)
- Lemonade
- Plate of salad, including lots of beans, veggies, and tofu
- Generous helping of chinese chicken salad
- Bowl of chicken noodle soup
- Ice cream cone
According to my calorie calculator, that comes to infinity plus one calories. I am the ugly American.
You know, it's only 8:30. I think I have room for a fourth dessert.
Such a good holiday.
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3 comments:
One of the first things that struck me when I moved to Japan was how trim everyone was, and how attractive so many people (i.e. women) were. Very quickly I started realizing that this divergence in body weight between our cultures wasn't simply a superficial difference or a matter of secondary importance. I realized that it was an indicator of one of the most important and alarming trends in American history, about which most Americans (including the media) have a skewed perspective, trapped as we are in the self-loathing, narcissistic myopia of our own body-image-related neuroses. (That trend being the seemingly inexorable inflationary march of our waistlines.)
I hypothesized that, to foreigners, the fatness of Americans has come to be a primary characteristic of their image of American people. To test this, I asked about 15-20 of my students (men and women of various ages and professions) to tell me how they would describe American people in only one word. I figured that I might get a few answes along the lines of "kind" or "opinionated" or "violent," but that the most common answer would be "fat." It turned out that I was wrong. In fact, fully 100% of my survey respondents said "fat" or "big" or "huge." Not one exception.
Anyway, Mike, I think that anyone who runs marathons should be allowed to indulge from time to time. Did I say "allowed?" Make that obligated.
On a different but related note, do you know the fried "Bloomin Onion" at Outback Steakhouse? Well, one time I went to Outback with a friend, and after we each ate half of that onion, I had a filet mignon with a loaded baked potato (cheese, cream cheese, butter, etc.), plus a honey mustard-drizzled salad. I followed that up with dessert. By the end of the meal I was buzzed and I could barely turn my head because of all the fat congealing in my jugular veins. Later I discovered that the average Bloomin' Onion contains 222 grams of fat. So I had eaten 111 grams of fat, as a prelude to eating all the other fat-laden stuff. Reflecting on this, I was amazed that I had survived.
I know a lot of people with stories like this. My dad once ate three pounds of bacon in one sitting. My cousin once ate a 64-ounce steak (and thereby won a foolish bet). One of my students once ate two full dinners (noodles, sushi), followed by a dessert consisting of 23 doughnuts. It's amazing how much abuse our bodies can take. And how willing we are to dish it out, so to speak.
Tyson, I don't claim to be an expert in international relations, but when all of your Japanese students described Americans as "fat", you should have eaten one of them.
Also, you have inspired me. Today I plan on eating a Bloomin Onion, a 64 oz steak, 3 pounds of bacon and then 23 doughnuts.
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