Yesterday, I Learned

Image courtesy of ohmyveggies.com

It began innocuously enough. Lor decided to experiment with "riced cauliflower", a rice substitute made from cauliflower chopped into really little rice-sized bits. We bought a bag of it from CostCo, and Lor decided to make an Orange Chicken stir-fry with it, utilizing Orange Chicken from Trader Joe's. Two pre-made bags = one easy meal, right?

My first warning should have been the serving size on the Trader Joe's bag: "1 Serving: 1 cup."

Betcha a few of you already spotted the problem right there, didn't you?

Yeah, 1 cup equals 8 ounces. Or, roughly, twice the capacity of a sleeve-reduced stomach.

But, we were not deterred. We would simply eat half a serving each, saving the rest for later. Economical eating is the wave of the future post-bariatric surgery, let me tell you.

Now, I was good. I swear I was. I took small bites. I put my fork down after each one. I chewed thoroughly. I watched the clock to make sure I was taking a full 60 seconds between bites.

What I didn't do was keep real close track of how much was left in my bowl. Hey, what can I say? It was really good, and we were watching an really compelling episode of The Blacklist.

At the point where I started to feel unusually full, I looked down into my bowl and saw that I had about 4 bites left. Maybe 2 ounces, total volume. That meant that, while distracted by the exploits of Red and Agent Keen, I had accidentally ingested about 6 ounces of food.

I immediately put the bowl down, but it was far, far too late.

It started as hiccups. The hiccups kept increasing in intensity, eventually getting to the point where my diaphragm was seizing every second or two, making it exceptionally difficult to speak or breathe normally. Finally, after about 5 minutes of gasping for air while experiencing a painful burning sensation in the center of my chest, relief (of a sort) arrived - I revisited dinner, this time heading the wrong direction. The vomiting was long and painful. The only upside was, immediately afterwards, the demonic hiccups ceased and I could actually breathe again, and no longer had to consider calling 911 to treat me for acute overeating.

Even this morning, my chest and my esophagus are still sore from the episode. Mainly what I am, though, is embarrassed. Repeated throughout our nutritional training is the instruction to not watch television while you eat. I always thought of this as an unusually restrictive instruction, since we never eat at a table, barring special occasions. We either eat while working in front of a computer or, like last night, while watching our one show of the night. (We generally only watch a single episode of television together each day. If it isn't sports, that is about all the TV I am interested in.)

What I should have done (and will do in the future) is not tempt fate by putting a "full" serving where I can get to it. If I am going to be distracted (and I frequently am), I need to make sure that 4 ounces of anything if the maximum that gets put in front of me at meal times. That way, there is no opportunity for me to injure myself the way I did yesterday.

Needless to say, I did not hit my protein goal for yesterday, and am not sure about it today, as eating is of very little interest to me at this moment. Maybe two or three protein shakes to make sure I don't have two days of less than 60 grams of protein in a row? Anything to avoid chewing and swallowing right now. I have exactly ZERO interest in a repeat performance of last night.

Chastened And Educated,

- Hawkwind

PS - This should in no way be taken as a condemnation of Riced Cauliflower. It was exceptionally tasty, and it was so nice to actually have something resembling rice! We will be using it again, just not in the quantities ingested yesterday.