Schools and Food

Before I write about schools and food, let me give you an update.

Yesterday’s weekend weigh-in: 170lbs.  Not a bad recovery from the Bahamas.  I spent a few hours at The Rush fitness center running and swimming and sitting in the sauna, trying to melt pounds before the scale.

Biggest roadblock: snacking.  The other morning, before I could even get my plate out of the cabinet, I’d eaten six Honey Barbeque potato chips.  They’re from Earth Fare, the healthy supermarket….but you simply can’t make a potato chip healthy.

A friend suggested I don’t buy potato chips.  (But they were on sale!).  Another suggested a larger portion plate – that it probably was embarrassing for me to be eating from a kids plate.  (Not really, I just lack discipline.)  My wife then observed that I eat from my daughter’s plate.  I wanted to object, but at the time I was stuffing half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my mouth while Sophia was crying.  Hmm?

It’s been a good day though today.  Had a great second plate of stir fry, cheese cubes, and a cookie.  Let’s keep it up…

Now, to schools.  Throughout history schools have been asked to do many things.  I went to graduate school for education but I couldn’t tell you what those things are (didn’t take the history class).  Each year U.S. students make the news for sucking at something: science, reading, math.  After some education bigwig gets on CNN and bemoans the state of public education in the U.S., new standards and charter school movements and after-school programs pop up to combat these issues.

But now there’s a greater childhood crisis that eclipses any academic deficiency: obesity.

Teachers are asked to be many things — parents, social workers, detention monitors.  It’s amazing they have any time to plan lessons and teach.  Soon they and the schools they work in are going to be charged with a new task: slimming America’s children.  Health is poised to be the new frontier of education.  This generation of kids is the first ever to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.  Scary.  But it’s an opportunity for schools (which usually morph into punching bags when kids mess up) to prove their worth.

Expect to see a host of non-profit and private funded organizations and institutions popping up around country touting a simple mission: educate the whole body.  Parents as a whole obviously can’t be trusted to raise healthy kids.  (Just look around if you don’t believe me.)  Schools need to step in.  Better lunch would be a good first step.  Read this article about how the French do food.  The French mess up a lot of stuff, but they are pretty skinny while doing food up right.  If you’re thinking of getting into education, think health.  It’s going to be a huge push in the next ten years.

Okay, okay, enough, back to the plate.  Tomorrow I’m switching plates (the original is in the dishwasher).  Going to slightly larger version, pink with some bunny rabbits on it I think.  Three plates instead of four.

Next up: Kids eat free!

The Bahamas

The Bahamas is cool…unless you’re on The Portion Plate Diet….

No, we didn’t have those all-you-can-eat-throw-your-portion-plate-out-the-window meal plans like you get in Club Med.  We should have; it would have been cheaper.  We stayed at Atlantis, a labyrinth of pools, temples, aquariums, casinos, John Bull shops, and drunk college kids.  The place is gorgeous, and expensive.  I learned this when I ordered an ice cream bar for my daughter Sophia after she’d exhausted herself in the kiddie pool.  $7.  “Uh, I said ice cream bar.  Not ice cream sundae with whipped cream and sapphire cherries.”

Our room had a motion-sensitive mini-bar.   Imagine, after having one too many Kiliks, rummaging around the bar for one of your own bottled waters that you smuggled through customs and accidentally nudging each airplane bottle of rum.  $131.  Yikes.

Back on point: there’s no reason I couldn’t have used my portion plate.  I brought it, which disappointed my wife only because I remembered it but forgot to bring enough clean t-shirts.  But when you’re paying $21 for a chicken BLT or $24 for veggie burger you feel obliged to eat the whole damn thing.  Unless you order the $19 Cesar salad with raw chicken and send the damn thing back.  “No, don’t re-cook the chicken.  Just bring out more nine-dollar beers.”

My wife, who thinks all food not sold by Earth Fare has high fructose corn syrup and is manufactured in a place other than where it’s being sold, wasn’t impressed with the food at Atlantis.  She particularly disliked a well-known brand of rum cakes being hawked in the marina shops.  “You would think by the marketing (“Made in the Bahamas”) that the stuff would be made here,” she said.  “But it’s imported.”  I asked the lady hawking the cake: “So, where’s this stuff made?”

“Right down the street.”  I smiled and stuffed three samples in my mouth.

(It’s important to note here that Dorothy was impressed with the $3,000 Rolex watches at John Bull, though I doubt Rolexes are manufactured in the Bahamas.  In the sports book I was impressed that Notre Dame only lost to West Virginia by two points (that bet paid for 1/10 of our mini-bar bill), although the game was being played in New York City.)

None of this has to do with The Portion Plate Diet, except that I think  I gained four pounds on the trip.  (Official weigh-in tomorrow.)  Pathetic.  I’m learning it’s easy to use the plate in the structured home environment; but I struggle on the road.  Still, I’ve found inspiration in Time article about the eating habits of the French.  Synopsis: the French eat a lot of rich food, but it’s good rich food.  And they eat slowly …. sitting down.  Result: a relatively healthy society.  We Americas eat a lot of crappy rich food.  We eat it fast.  We eat it all the time: while driving, working, watching television, emailing, texting, surfing the web, and so on.  What we rarely do is make time to eat.  Good food.  At tables.  That about sums up my vacation: eating on the periphery — snacking on bad food at the kiddie pool, in the hotel lobby, at the Sports Book, at Jamba Juice.  The alternative: eating regular meals from my portion plate at designated times.  It worked the first week, and it can work again.  As long as Atlantis doesn’t offer any more buy three night get the fourth free plus a companion ticket.  Because it’s so worth an additional five pounds.

No pictures in this post.  I don’t want to take up too much space with my spare tire.  My wife gave me a hug today and said I bumped her with it.  As for a grade for vacation: D-.  Spared an F because no one asked me to put my shirt back on in the kiddie pool.  And because I talked my way out of the faux mini-bar bill.

Up next: Schools and Food

The Gala Gorge

A week and a few days into The Portion Plate Diet and I’m sucking balls (chicken balls that it) – which is why I haven’t posted in awhile.  Last Thursday night set me back – way back! – and brought to light an important question: what happens when you (unexpectedly) find yourself at a $200/night gala with roast beef, bite-sized burritos, heaping cheese and fruit platters, and chicken cordon blue balls – without your portion plate.

Here’s the story.  Last Thursday morning I was invited to a gala.  At the time I didn’t really know what a gala was (I don’t even know to pronounce it – long or short “a”?).  I wasn’t invited to contribute either socially or monetarily.  Instead, I was asked to tag along to shoot videos of a few colleagues who were performing at the event to raise money.  I left the house at 6:00pm assuming I’d be home by 7:15pm to eat my final portion plate.  Long story short: the occasion was black tie and being held at one of the nicest hotels in North Carolina.

Thanks for telling me.

I showed up in dirty jeans and a ratty athletic jacket.  The folks I was there to film looked at me and split to the far corner of the ballroom.  No matter.  How often are you presented with an unlimited supply of expensive food with zero constraints on how or how much you should eat?  I headed to the nearest buffet table and called my wife on the way: “I’ll be home late.”

If I’d had my portion plate I would have chucked it in the trash.  Really, this was a once every five year spread.  I skipped the fruit and cheese and loaded my plate with six chicken cordon blue balls and three burritos.  I found a table in the corner and stuffed the food in my mouth.  At the bar (which was open) an elderly lady looked at (smelled) me and asked what organization I was with.  “The media,” I lied.  She smirked and walked away.

I downed a Corona on my way to the buffet line on the opposite side of the room.  (My clothes stood me out; no reason to be seen double dipping in the same trough.)  I shrugged off a few stares and grabbed a new dinner plate.  Four more chicken balls and two slabs of roast beef.  I was stuffed after this but had entered food coma and couldn’t control myself.  Back at the original buffet table I loaded up on cheese squares, pineapple, and burritos.  I ate one burrito while waiting in the roast beef line.  A guy about my age dressed in a creepy red tux nodded: “Good, aren’t they?”  Before I could clear my mouth he asked where I was from.  “The media,” I said.  I held up my Flip camera.  “Cool!” he said.  “I just got one of those.”

I spotted my colleagues at a nearby table and got out fast.  Back at my table I finished my plate and loaded it up one final time with eight chicken balls, which I stuffed into my jacket pocket like Napolean Dynamite.  I wanted to see how many chicken balls would fit on my portion plate.  I guessed at least seven.

When I got home I showed my wife the chicken balls (“You took them from the buffet!”) and explained my plan for eating them as one of my portion plates the next day.  “Like I said, it’s not what you eat, but how much,” I argued.

“You’ve got problems,” she said.  Really?  I’d gorged myself into a stupor and stuffed chicken balls into my coat pocket so I could try to fit them on a kids-sized plate that I eat off of just four times a day in an attempt to prove how easy it is to lose weight.  Sounds normal to me.

My guess is that I lost about four pounds in the first four days of The Portion Plate Diet.  But I gained it all back on Thursday night.  The lesson: never leave home without your portion plate.  Ever!  And wear some decent clothes to a gala, no matter how you pronounce it!

Grade: Is there any questions…..F-

Up Next: Moving Day

Buffets

I enjoy buffets.  I went to the Peking buffet five days a week during a summer school session in college.  You’re not supposed to take food home from buffets.  Silly rule.  Buffets are all-you-can-eat (as Homer Simpson proved), so the wait staff shouldn’t look at you like your homeless when you shovel a few (twelve) hunks of Seasame Chicken into your back pack for later.  My mom likes bringing home bonus biscuits or cookies from buffets.  Why not?

My dad loves buffets, especially brunch.  He’d be happy eating Eggs Benedict and Monte Cristo sandwiches every day for the rest of his life.  Did I mention high cholesterol runs in the family?

(Olympic updates.  Evgeni Plushenko has been given his own reality T.V show: The Biggest (Sore) Loser.  This afternoon he made himself a new medal made of chocolate and peanut butter; Evan Lysacek ate it.  NBC, in partnership with the Olympic Committee, has created a new event that will air on Monday: Ultimate Fighting: Lindsay Vonn vs. Julia Mancuso.)

Buffets: They’ve been made void by The Portion Plate Diet.  Why pay $22 for a seafood buffet if you’re only going to eat one plate.  You could fast and double up, but eating just two plates at the buffet is so pre-U.S obesity days.  Imagine if everyone went to the portion plate.  Buffets would go out of business.  So would Olive Garden, which is a glorified buffet.  Imagine trying to fit an Olive Garden portion on your portion plate.  Like trying to keep a dog in a bathtub.

My dad’s considering The Portion Plate Diet.  Three problems.  The plate he got is more like a portion tray.  It’s got like six sections.  Four of those a day and he’ll look like Jabba.  I call this plate “Big Red.”

Second, his plate is well-suited to buffets.  Finally, he’s yet to weigh in.  “I forgot to get one at Walmart.”  I think he’s just messing with me.

Still on my island here, looking for PlateWagon members…

Had another tough day today, as I (unexpectedly) found myself at a $200 a head Gala with Chicken Cordon Blue Balls with cheese dips.  Didn’t have my plate…..a.k.a. — Binge!  More to come….

Up next: “The Gala.”

Off the “PlateWagon”

Called Tiger for a scandal but he was in a “therapy” session.  Then I called the Olympic figure skating judges, but they were busy fielding calls from Evgeni Plushenko (do you believe Evgeni gave himself a platinum medal?) and Vladamir Putin.  I expect one of the judges to keel over any minute rom a spot of dioxin.   My dad, who still hasn’t weighed in, claims he’s got a good scandal for me.  It’s probably a super-sized portion plate from The Cheesecake Factory.

All of this is smoke and mirrors though, delaying the documentation of me falling hard off the “PlateWagon” today.  I was riding high, enjoying the breeze, dropping lbs., when I hit a pothole (not unlike the one I hit on I-240 the other day Asheville DOT – just in case you’re reading) and crashed.

CSI Asheville was on the scene of the crash.  Analysis: my plate was dirty and in the dishwasher, so I had to wing in most of the day, which led to a collapse in reasoning and willpower.  I’m pleading temporary insanity for my actions.

I did okay with breakfast, although my hands shook a bit without my plate.  I ate a tiny bowl of cereal and four grapes.

I’d planned to pack my lunch on my plate, cover it with tin foil, and take it to work.  But with it in the dishwasher I got flustered.  I hastily threw a piece of pizza and two grapes into a Tupperware container.  Because I didn’t eat enough for breakfast, I woofed down the pizza and grapes…on the drive to work!  Two plates down, and it was only 9:15am.

I picked my daughter up from pre-school at 1pm.  At this point I was “hangry” because I hadn’t eaten enough for breakfast or lunch.  So I gorged at Earth Fare.  I ate a whole tempeh sandwich (a quarter would have fit my potion plate perfectly), plus the 20 chips that came with it.  Then I ate some of my daughter’s mac and cheese.  She was mad, but I sure felt better.

At this point I figured my portion plate was a lost cause for day.  So this afternoon I fixed myself a big snack — chicken salad sandwich, chips, carrots, and popcorn, and ate that down at about 3pm.  Then I did more grazing at 5pm.  My wife and I had dinner at 7pm; pizza and fruit and salad.  Then I ate some more popcorn, followed by two homemade “Dorothy” cookies that should be off limits for anyone on The Portion Plate Diet because it’s hard to each just one.  Or four.  By eight o’clock I’d far exceeded for plate count.  I was feeling bloated, so I punished myself by stuffing some hunks of cheddar cheese in my mouth.  Pathetic really.  To top it off, my daughter had a nightmare and woke up screaming about an hour ago.  I finally got her settled down, but she wouldn’t go back to sleep without doing the “Boom chicka boom chicka boom boom boom” song.  You know, the one about me being fat and about to burst like Violet Beauregard.  Sophia now sings the song like Eminem, pumping her first up and down and rapping in a low-pitched gurgle.  Great….

No reason for a full report card today.  I got an F and that’s final.

Up next: “Buffets”

We need a scandal!

I fell off the PlateWagon today and don’t want to talk about it.  Well, I do, but not now, because I’ve been thinking about last night’s episode of The Bachelor and it gave me some ideas on how to spread the word about The Portion Plate Diet. Excuse this aside…it’s a bit off track but I’m going somewhere with it.  Really.

Many people hope to parlay their blogs and websites into book deals, fame, and fortune.  Document silly photos of cats (I Can Has Cheeseburgers has more advertising than a Nascar), and you just may become the next Internet sensation.  As the New York Post recently put it, “These days it seems more and more like people start goofy Web sites practically counting on seeing their stuff between two covers.”

I’m not lying when I say I really don’t care if Oprah reads this blog and invites me on her show.  I’d really just like her to lose some weight so I can see the other features on the cover of her magazine. (No Oprah, I’m not linking to your magazine.)  As for a book deal, losing weight is so ridiculously easy it doesn’t warrant a single book.  When Random House calls I’m going turn them down, just so I can be the first person to ever turn down Random House.  At least then I will have one cool thing to tell my grandkids some day.

If I do earn even a speck of recognition from this blog I’d like it to happen the new-fashion way: by scandal.  The show The Bachelor offers a rubric.  The show’s popular to begin with, but it hit a road bump this season when one of its producers had a fling with one of the bachelorettes.  Instead of being derailed, The Bachelor brilliantly embraced the scandal.  On last night’s penultimate episode they teased us and teased us with soppy interviews with the expelled bachelorettes, until we (my wife and I) were practically chewing on the remote to hear the scandal details.  It reminded me (not the chewing) of the scene in the movie Clear and Present Danger, when Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan encourages the president to embrace a relationship with a past friend turned criminal.  “Don’t say you were friends,” Ryan advises.  “Say you were lifelong friends.”  Or something like that.

The folks at The Bachelor obviously have grasped the concept of embracing.  I don’t know who they are, but Tiger Woods should fire all his “handlers” and hire these folks instead.  Have you ever seen anyone handle a scandal worse than the Woods team?  Instead of embracing his deviant ways and what doubtless would have been a thorough yet cathartic evisceration from the media, Tiger plowed robot-like through a staged press conference without fielding one question.  How myopic can you get?

Toyota isn’t doing much better.  One recall after another but Toyota hasn’t capitalized.  Yes, capitalize.  Nothing sells better than the resurrected hero, the fallen gladiator bestowed to his former glory.  For Toyota, it’s simple: embrace the scandal by developing a brakeless car.  Talk about how the scandal humbled the company but at the same to led to new thinking in voice-activated brakes.  Then have the engineering team appear on CNN to celebrate the revival.

People love scandals.  They’re now the threads that bind society together, that give colleagues and friends and family members stuff to talk about other than colleagues and friends and family members behind their backs.  In Four Wedding in a Funeral Gareth offers a sound rationale for getting married: as a way out of the deadlock for couples who have nothing left to talk about.  “They get married!” he explains.  “Then they’ll have something to talk about for the rest of their lives!”  Brilliant for sure, but now we have a better option, and one that may lead to reduced divorce rates.  Scandals.  Not a day goes by without a new scandal to discuss and dissect.  It’s now impossible to run out of conversation fodder.  The Bachelor invited us into its scandal.  Tiger and Toyota should have done the same.

President Obama could use a good scandal too.  “No Drama” Obama is the real reason he’s sucking so bad, especially on health care.  He’s too thoughtful, too intelligent, too rationale, too conciliatory, too patient, all to a fault.  Striving for civil discourse is noble, but what the country really wanted was an irate, racist senator from South Carolina to call Obama a liar during one of his biggest speeches.   Cue Joe Wilson.  Scandalous?  Sure.  Genius?  Absolutely.  The Republicans parlayed his outburst and subsequent media frenzy into a debilitating assault on the president’s health care plan.  It’s working quite well.

First Lady Michele Obama tried to help by bringing her children into the childhood obesity discussion, but that story didn’t gain scandal status because someone at McDonald’s paid the White House a crap load of money to pipe down about fat kids.  (At least that’s my theory.)  What I’m saying is that Obama desperately needs to do something wrong or say something offensive, something that makes him appear fallible or naughty or just plain bad ass.  Since this is a blog about dieting and weight loss, I think Obama should call out Americans for being fat pigs and tell us to stop gorging ourselves.  Go on, dish us some tough love Prez.  We need it!  He would offend a lot of people (because a lot of people are fat), but it may be the wake up call we need.  And it certainly would refocus the health care debate.  Isn’t politics about controlling the message?  If Obama wants to mention The Portion Plate Diet while he’s at it, great.

What I’m leading up to is this: to go mainstream the The Portion Plate Diet may also need a scandal, something to get people agitated, to get them talking.  Maybe a man gets so hungry he chokes trying to eat his own portion plate?  Or a woman gets so “hangry” she pummels her co-worker with half a banana.  The scandal gets captured on video and posted to YouTube and we’re an overnight sensation.  I’d go on television to field questions and embrace the scandal, saying it was an inevitable side-effect of a movement toward a slimmer America.  Levitra has side effects, but its commercials make sure to highlight the long-lasting erection over the chronic blurred vision.  We will adopt the same strategy with The Portion Plate Diet.  No progress without setbacks.  Seems to work for the military’s strategy of bomb dropping in Afghanistan.

Now all we need is a good scandal.  Hmm?  I’ll call Tiger to see if he has any ideas.

Up Next: “Off the PlateWagon.”

Moe’s

Day two of The Portion Plate Diet.

I’ve been harassing my dad about joining up.  He needs to lose a few, and I need a comrade-in-loss.  He’s interested but claims he can’t find a plate.  “They don’t have them at Walmart.”

(They don’t sell horses at Walmart either, but you can still get one.)

A lame excuse from a man who loves the Internet.

“How about the Internet?” I suggested.

His response: “Oh, yeah.”

Now back to the eating.  Breakfast and lunch were easy today.  Standard stuff: toast, nuts, fruit, half a chicken salad sandwich, and so on.  I was feeling good so I took my daughter Sophia to Moe’s for an early dinner.  She loves Moe’s, mainly because of the balloon lady and the fact that my parents took her there six times in three days last time they came to visit.

My lovely wife Dorothy says Moe’s is terrible for you.  She also thinks running six miles a day is good for you, so you decide.

I actually wanted to eat some bad, fatty food, just to test the theory that it’s not about what you eat, but how much, when it comes to weight loss.  Sophia ordered a kids quesadilla. I ordered a kids burrito.  (I always order a kids meal at Moe’s because it comes with a cookie and a cool cup.)  I settled Sophia in a booth and went to collect napkins and drinks and salsa.  When I came back she’d eaten half my burrito!

“It’s yummy Daddy.”  She laughed a wicked laugh and started on her quesadilla.

Chips may be my biggest weakness.  In middle school I ate a large bag of Doritos’s Cool Ranch chips.  Every day.  Really.  It’s no wonder I didn’t kiss too many girls in high school.  I mean, I played sports and was reasonably popular.  But who wants to kiss someone with “dragon” breath.

The portion plate is a huge help in the fight against chips.  A kids meal at Moe’s comes with approximately 12 chips.  Sophia doesn’t like chips, so when we eat at Moe’s I engulf all 24.  But today I could fit only two chips on my plate.  Problem solved.

It would have been a perfect portion plate meal had Sophia not swiped half my burrito.  But she looked so happy shoving rice and beans and sour cream in her mouth I couldn’t stop her.  I ate the other half, plus my chips and cookie, and drank a glass of water.  And actually felt satiated.  Certainly not full, but strangely content.  I took a picture of my plate (simply to draw attention to myself), which caught the attention of a middle-aged woman in the booth next to us.

“Nice plate.”

“Yeah, I’m on a diet,” I said, a little too aggressively.

“Smaller portions?”

“Yeah,” I said,  a bit deflated.  “Pretty good idea, don’t you think?”

“I guess.”  She went back to her burrito.

The woman’s disinterest was a minor setback.  It’s now 6:15pm, I’m feeling good, about to go for a swim, and plan on eating my final plate during the Olympics.

Report Card

Name: Scott Tiernan

Date: Monday, February 22, 2010

Foods: toast, grapes, cereal, Moe’s burrito + chips + cookie

Exercise: 30 minutes of swimming; 10 minutes of sitting in the hot tub

Mood: Light, cheerful

Comments: Great day so far.  Portion plate served as a block to Scott’s chip binging habit.  Scott’s daughter ate half his burrito at Moe’s, but that spared him an extra trip to the toilet and heartburn.  Feeling mildly hungry with one plate to go.

Grade: A- (Would have been an “A” — but still have six hours left in the day.)

Up next: “We need a scandal!”

First Full Day

Was yesterday.

Breakfast was easy, because I don’t eat much for breakfast, so I actually had to work hard to finish my toast and nuts and cereal.

My late lunch was easy too: a half a chicken salad sandwich, some fruit, and some cheesy popcorn.  I was feeling good.

But then I strayed.  I’d planned to eat a late lunch at 3pm, but Dorothy and Sophia and I found ourselves at Target, and I found myself getting hungry.  Sophia wanted a pretzel from the Target cafe.  I sneaked a few bites, Dorothy caught me, and I had to forfeit one of my plates.  To be fair, Dorothy has been supportive and upbeat about the diet (who wants a chunky husband?), complementing my plate and such.  But I think she sneaked some grapes from my lunch plate when I’m wasn’t looking just to mess with me.   Come on!  I’m not that fat!

I started to get “hangry” by the end of our Target trip.  I was cross with Sophia when she wouldn’t try on a pair of new shoes (she just wanted to go to REI to get the really expensive ones), and by the time we got home, after a trip to the park for Sophia to try out her new shoes (now they’re both messing with me) I was lightheaded.  Dorothy made a great dinner — stir fry with rice.  I overflowed the main section of my plate and added fruit and nuts and popcorn.  I ate it all in three minutes and then stared at the empty dish.

“You all finished Daddy?” Sophia said.

“Yes.  Yes, I am.”

Dorothy shook her head and smiled.  Then she baked cookies — I’d forgotten about these — but she said I couldn’t have any.  “You’re out of plates for the day.”

She was right of course.  But after she went to bed I shoved two cookies into my mouth and chewed loudly for good measure.

Note: Sophia gets a daily report card from pre-school, a summary of what she ate, trips to the bathroom, her mood, and what she liked doing.  I’m going to grade myself on a daily basis as well with The Portion Plate Diet.

Report Card

Name: Scott Tiernan

Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010

Foods: chicken salad, stir fry, grapes, nuts, cookies

Exercise: 30 minutes of non-vigorous walking

Mood: Jovial turned “hangry”

Comments: Scott liked eating his chicken salad sandwich and his stir fry.  He didn’t like eating so many grapes and nuts.  He started the day happy but became visibly frustrated in the afternoon.

Grade: C+

This is going to be harder than I thought.  Still, I know I’ve dropped at least 2 pounds already.

Up next: “Moe’s”

Opening night at Tupelo

Opening night of The Portion Plate Diet flopped like a World Cup soccer player.  We ate at a popular, crowded, noisy restaurant – Tupelo Honey Cafe – with two women, Jayne and Kristy, who work with my wife Dorothy, plus our couple friends, Jason and Joanna, and their three kids, two boys and a little girl.  Add our daughter Sophia to the mix and it was pretty chaotic.

Things started well.  Jayne asked me if I had my plate – I’d pitched the idea to her a few days before (she wrote a food blog when she lived in Washington, D.C.) – and told me she was considering my diet.  “But only for dinner.”  Fair enough.  I need some folks on the “PlateWagon.”

I tried to direct crisscrossing conversations to my diet, but no one else seemed interested.  Dorothy and Joanna were discussing the service; Jason was busy with his daughter and youngest son; Kristy was entertaining Sophia; and Jason and Joanna’s oldest son was playing with his new Bakugan, a balled-up action-figure warrior that springs to life like a “black snake” firework when you smack it against a hard surface.  I leaned toward Dorothy.  “Maybe I shouldn’t bring it out tonight.”

“Bring what out?”

Exactly.

When the restaurant’s signature biscuits arrived I abstained, waiting for the main course before filling my plate, which I toted in Sophia’s change-of-clothes bag.  Sophia devoured two biscuits in as many minutes.  “You not eating Daddy?” she asked with grape-jelly covered lips.

“Not yet.”

I thought everyone would take notice when I unveiled my portion plate, like it was the Green Destiny from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Wrong.  Everyone did what people do when their food is served at a restaurant: they ate.  Dejected, I sliced my black bean burger and dished the bigger half and a spoonful of mashed sweet potatoes onto my plate.  I scanned the table searching for affirmation.  Jason polished off two chicken wings; Sophia started on a sweet potato pancake; Jane and Kristy plunged forks into heaping salads; and the smiling monkey on my portion plate stared at me: silly boy.  The waitress brought a third basket of biscuits.  I add half a biscuit to the last section of my plate along with some ketchup for my burger to cover the monkey, then ate my mashed potatoes in two (small) bites.

“This is great Scott,” Dorothy finally said.  I expected her to draw attention to my plate; instead, she snagged the second half of my burger.

“But I was going to eat that tom…”

Too late.

“How are you going to clean that thing off?” Joanna asked toward the end of the meal.  Not the question I wanted, but a portion plate question nonetheless.

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“How about the bathroom,” Dorothy suggested.

This response earned me bathroom duty with Sophia and Joanna and Jason’s youngest son.  As I was drying my plate  and staring at the bits of burger wedged in the ribbed sink and praying no one would walk it, I heard: “Scott, I need you to wipe my tush!”

“What?”  This wasn’t my child calling.

“I need you to wipe my tush!”

“What the…?”

I ended up wiping the boy’s bum.  On our way out the door Sophia noticed my plate.  “You clean your portion plate Daddy?”

“Yes sweetheart.”

She smiled.  I smiled.  My diet had been remembered; and the tush was forgotten.

Grade for the evening: C+

Up next: “First Full Day”

The Weigh In

It’s official. 174.3 pounds. The weigh in took place at The Rush fitness facility in Asheville, witnessed by three 80-something naked men waiting their turn on the scale.

I snapped this photo.

My official weight loss goal: 14.3 pounds.  No time frame….just trying to get to 160.  Weigh-ins will occur every Saturday at noon.

It’s going to be tough at Tupelo tonight.  Great restaurant — but the best way to kick this off is with a scrumptious, oversized, out-to-dinner portion.  Wait till they see my plate!

(I’m off to gorge myself for the next five hours.)

Next: “Opening night at Tupelo”