Troubles When Eating Out

Going out and about while finding food is a challenge for me.

If you've followed my blog posts you know that I'm very much set into routines. It's an Asperger thing. Or maybe it's a me thing. I don't know, but it's the way I am.

There are a few places I am comfortable going to because I more or less know what to expect. For example, we go to Panera Bread and get a sandwich because I normally can eat half a sandwich and take the other half home without feeling uncomfortable or overfull. I had at one point cut down to eating a McMuffin at McDonald's for breakfast once a week...turns out they're 4 ounces...but eventually I decided that there was a little too much fat and sodium in the fast food I was eating and so when we now go there I pack something for my breakfast to take in with me.

I started getting little sushi rolls...picnic rolls, they're called...at Wegman's. They're pretty good. The primary problem is that they aren't too high in protein. They're mainly rice and vegetables; some of them have a fake crabmeat in them, but that's really it. Because of the restrictions that come with my surgery I need to be a little more mindful of getting protein an calcium in my diet, so then I started using the picnic rolls as an accompaniment to other foods like a chunk of cheddar.

Unfortunately there's something like 16 mini-rolls in a tray. I end up having to eat them for the next several meals or I risk them spoiling and then wasting the money buying the food. I utterly hate wasting food (or money on food because I waited too long to use it).

I later discovered the turkey wraps at our local "Super Walmart". They don't call them wraps, but that's what they are. The wrap is cut into four parts and the size in ounces divides them up nicely so I can eat half without going over my portion limit.

I love Wegman's. I utterly love it. But their wraps...too big. The net weight on the container is one pound, so that would mean that half the wrap is 8 ounces. I try to limit my food to 6 ounces or less.

Damn.

The other night we ended up stopping at a Walmart to get some food and groceries, and discovered that that particular Super Walmart didn't have the turkey wraps. I was extremely disappointed since trying something else would mean risking side effects or having to figure out how much I could eat without causing problems.

We stopped at a Wegmans and I took their wrap and purchased a 7.5 ounce container of their picnic sushi rolls. I ate 1/4 of the wrap which should have come out to about 4 ounces, and then 4 of the sushi rolls which should be about 1.8 ounces (7.5 divided by four, since the tray was in four rows of four). Anyway, I hoped it would come out to about 5.8 ounces in theory, and I didn't have any problems after eating it so I guess it worked out well enough.

But obviously you can see the kind of hoops I have to jump through to get the mental math to work out just to get a meal when I don't have it pre-made.

When I'm not careful enough I have other issues. When we ate out at a restaurant for our anniversary I had issue with the chicken (again, it happens sometimes but not always). My wife didn't think I ate too much. I didn't think I ate too much. But I obviously did something wrong; if it wasn't eating too much it must have been something with what I ate.

It was a chicken breast with pilaf topped with a cherry and brandy (it was some kind of alcohol, I'm not sure if it was brandy or not). I ate a portion of the meal and had the rest boxed but it was too late.

My stomach had that over-full feeling. Slight but constant pain. Not a horrible one, but enough to annoy me.

In addition my thigh muscles felt...the best term I could use to describe it is spent. Not tired. Not cramped. Just weary, bordering on numb. Wobbly?

I didn't know if it was the alcohol not entirely cooked off the cherries on the chicken or what. All I know was that despite the meal being very good, I had a definite issue at hand...I ended up hanging out in the bathroom and walking around a bit, touring the restaurant while trying to work some of the digestive problem out.

There was no extreme pain, vomiting, or nausea. It slowly glubbed away and I was fine after about ten or fifteen minutes.

Again, you can see that this can be an issue. The place was unfamiliar to me, the drive was long...if I did have other issues that could cause a mess,...well, the thought of it was a source of great anxiety.

This is something that I as a post-operative bariatric patient must learn to live and deal with though. Once the RNY (Roux-en-Y) procedure is completed there's no going back. Having to deal with this is just...part of the new me.

Hopefully the tradeoffs...anticipating better health and energy, for example...will be worth the price I have to pay.