The Most I Ever Ate

Get in my belly, Gigi's Cupcakes!

If you have not been able to glean any other information about me from reading this blog, you have probably realized by this point that I love food and eating. When I was much younger (teens, early twenties) I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted. I could have a huge ice cream cone every night and I would not gain a single pound. Now, I think I put on a few ounces each time I have an illicit thought of scarfing down a King Size Butterfinger, or eating only the icing off of the top of a Gigi’s Cupcake.

Back in my youth, I used to love going out to eat. I also really loved Italian food. One of my favorite places to eat was called the Italian Oven. It was a chain Italian restaurant, a little bit like the Olive Garden, only not quite as well decorated and without the extremely annoying commercials. Well, one evening, I was going on a date with my then boyfriend.  I was probably about 17 years old at the time. He too loved food and eating, so we were well matched for this date. We went out to eat at the Italian Oven, and then we went to see a movie.

Well, I had decided earlier on the day of the date that I was just going to eat whatever I wanted that night, and he was typically of that mindset too, so when we got to the restaurant we went all out. First, we ordered mozzarella sticks, salad, and bread. We gobbled up all the cheese sticks faster than Bill Clinton could deny an affair, and I am sure we ate all of the bread, too. I probably ate some of the salad, but only after dumping an entire container of shaky cheese on top (that is what I call the parmesan you get at Italian restaurants—you know the stuff in the little shakers).

Then our entrees came. I don’t remember what he got, but I know I got chicken parmesan. (This was before I became a vegetarian.) I remember being pretty full at this point, but I was determined to have a multi-course meal and finish everything, for whatever reason. Later, when I was in my early twenties, I developed the same sort of do or die mentality about water consumption.  I had already drunk several 64-ounce containers of water, and I decided to weigh myself just to see if I would be heavier after drinking all that water. Well, I weighed about three pounds more than usual, so, fueled by the same bizarre energy that motivated the Italian Oven eating binge, I decided to see if I could make myself gain ten pounds simply by drinking water. I kept downing 64-ounce containers of water, and eventually I weighed ten pounds heavier than I typically did. However, I felt so sick, and so sloshy, that I had to lie down for the remainder of the evening. Now, I did have to get up often to go to the bathroom, but, for the most part I just lay there like a beached whale. Who knows why I do these things? I sure don’t!

Anyway, that night at the Italian Oven, I was not really that hungry when my entrée came, but I pushed through it like a champ, finishing the entire thing. My boyfriend and I were just sitting there, in pretty deep food comas, when the waiter came sidling up to the table with the dessert menus. Now, at this point, I think we both felt like that guy in the movie Seven who was forced to eat all the spaghetti. But, keeping with the many-course meal theme, we ordered tiramisu. When it came we both looked at it disdainfully. We didn’t really want it, but, to finish the evening out, we had to eat it. We somehow finished our meal and, like two ginormous Weebles, we paid the check and tottered out the door to the car.

I bet Hugh Grant doesn't gorge
himself on Italian food!

After that we met some friends for a free prerelease screening of the Hugh Grant film 9 Months. The movie was so crowded that we ended up sitting on the floor in the back of the theater. Why I so wanted to see that movie I don’t know, because pregnancy is typically not a very pleasant thought to a 17 year-old, but I think I probably had a crush on Hugh Grant, which explains it (I think this was before the whole arrest with a prostitute scandal, because I doubt I would have found that very attractive, even with my horrible taste in men.) I remember the movie hazily, but mostly I remember clutching my stomach and wanting to go home and go to sleep.

After the movie, we went back to my boyfriend’s parents’ house, where his room was in the basement. We went down there and both lay down on his bed, uncomfortable beyond belief, and proceeded to have the least romantic night in the history of the world. When you are a teenager, dates are often concluded with some good old-fashioned necking in your parents’ house or your date’s parents’ house. Well, we both felt so sick that we didn’t want to be anywhere near each other. I remember wanting to go home, but feeling too sick to get up, and having to wait awhile to leave, like I was waiting for an alcoholic buzz to wear off or something.

When I finally got home I still felt awful. I had to take a shower, because when I eat fried stuff like mozzarella sticks, my face always feels oily, and simply washing it at the sink is not going to cut it. I took a shower, and rolled into bed, sleeping like a rock until the next morning. When I woke up, I was still really full, and I did not develop an appetite until the middle of the next day.

Now, I often wish that I could still eat absolutely whatever I want and not gain weight, but I am unlikely to ever eat as much as I ate that night ever again, because it was an awful feeling to sit through a whole movie in such a state. Now, I have learned to better control my eating, and instead of gorging myself on an entire meal, I simply choose one item on which to gorge myself, like eating a whole bag of Baked Cheetos, or devouring a bag of fun-sized Snickers. The good thing about my relationship with food is that there is always room for improvement. I have nowhere to go but up!