Check This Out...What Super Sizing Costs Us

You guys all know I am trying to watch my budget along with the waistline (funny how the two can actually have a lot of connections).

So when I saw an article about what supersizing food sizes really costs us, in terms of money and health, I was fascinated.

Check it out (borrowed from a Yahoo article):

Here’s exactly how expensive it really is whenever you go for the “bargain”:

• 7-Eleven: Gulp to Double Gulp Coca-Cola Classic: 37 cents extra buys 450 more calories.
• Cinnabon: Minibon to Classic Cinnabon: 48 more cents buys 370 more calories.
• Movie theater: Small to medium unbuttered popcorn: 71 additional cents buys you 500 more calories.
• Convenience store: Regular to “The Big One” Snickers: 33 more cents packs on 230 more calories.
• McDonald’s: Quarter Pounder with Cheese to Medium Quarter Pounder with Cheese Extra Value Meal: An additional $1.41 gets you 660 more calories.
• Subway: 6-inch to 12-inch Tuna Sub: $1.53 more buys 420 more calories.
• Wendy’s: Classic Double with Cheese to Classic Double with Cheese Old Fashioned Combo Meal: $1.57 extra buys you 600 more calories.
• Baskin Robbins: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Kids’ Scoop, to Double Scoop: For another $1.62, you’ve added 390 calories.

The bottom line on all this? For just a hair more than 8 bucks, you’ve bought yourself an additional 3,620 calories. If you ate each of these once a week, and you were to switch to the smaller size each time—again, still all your favorite foods, just in a more reasonable size—you’d save about $417 a year. It’s not going to buy you a new car, but it could put you on a plane to the Bahamas. But far more important than that is what it will mean to your waistline, because in saving that $417, you’ll also save 188,240 calories in a year—enough to shave a whopping 54 pounds of flab off your body! (Hey, take the 400 bucks and buy some new pants!)

How is that for an eye-opener?

So I'm working to get back into my normal pattern, which will help me calm down and not feel so panicked about what I've been eating. Thanks for the encouragement, Josie! I do indeed need my Vigilance Cape. Sometimes I forget that I have it.

And South Beach Steve, thanks for your sweet comment. That clammy hand you feel hanging on tight to your coattails is me!

I did a calorie calculation of all that I ate last week and came to the conclusion that I had not ingested an apocalyptic amount of food.

Sometimes I just freak out when things are not what I'm used to -- I think I've gotten kind of dependent on only eating certain foods. When things vary, I invariably feel panicked and scared that I'm going to sabotage myself and just go off the deep end.

We food addicts have a real vulnerability factor to deal with, don't we? I guess it's a bit like the alcoholic who is afraid to have even one drink, lest it lead to another, and another, and well.... a full-blown binge. Ugh. I can so relate to that fear.

Somebody Throw Me a Parachute

I'm sinking -- fast!

This week has not gone well. At all.

Some things are out of my control, like the weather. It's so cold here right now that walking to work is impossible. That's my default exercise, and I'm missing it.

But other things aren't out of my control -- I've allowed them to get out of control!!! Like my eating, which has skidded off track and become a runaway freight train.

Let me break it down in black and white so it can stare me in the face:

Tuesday was ok, but a big dinner out with steak frites. Not my normal nighttime consumption.

Wednesday was awful. I broke my golden rule at work and dipped into the digestive biscuits placed out on the shared food table, then had two slices of the chocolate rum cake I brought back from the Bahamas for the office. THEN I proceeded to have a sandwich later in the day, I think.

And we had our friend over dinner. That was a fairly ok meal, I just didn't need to eat anything at all at that point. I wasn't hungry.

Thursday was ok until I started on my way home. I had stomach pains, but don't know why. Stopped and got a bag (not huge, but not tiny either) of Combo cheese and pretzel snacks. They're complete poison, but I ate them. Then had dinner on top of it.

Friday was the worst yet, I think. The yearning for carbs was so strong. I had a scone around 10am -- after my usual very filling breakfast of cottage cheese and blueberries. Absolutely no need to eat it, in terms of hunger.

Then I got a bagel with cream cheese and salmon. The only thing I can say about this is that it was free -- but I didn't know that when I picked it up off the shelf with my coffee. I was just looking to eat. And I was already so full from the scone.

I didn't eat for awhile after that, but late afternoon ran out and got two half sandwiches -- chicken and basil and a hummus with veggies. Ate those with soy chips. A bag for each half sandwich. Way, way way too much.

On the way home, a small bag of sesame stick snacks.

Home for a totally unnecessary dinner, which was small potatoes and a piece of lamb, since it was the B/F's night to cook.

Did I mention that I've been drinking wine almost every night this week? A few glasses, but still...that always leads to overeating. Whenever my French friend is around, and he's been here a lot this week, there is wine.

And we have a dinner tonight with friends.

In writing this all down, I'm now declaring the days of snacking and stuffing over. I'm not sure if I'm reacting to the week of almost no food, or if it's stress.

Since coming back we've been hit with lots of bad news vis-a-vis two dear friends' parents, plus I had to reintegrate into my anxiety-laden job.

Whatever the reason, it has to stop. Now.

Tomorrow I have plenty of time to spend at the gym. And Monday too. That will help sort me out, I'm sure. A good workout always puts things right.

And Monday night we have the opera! A fun excuse to dress up. More on that later.

But I've got to pull my head out of whatever swamp it's in. The food I've been eating has been doing me no good. Whatever my problem is right now, eating isn't the answer.