Back at School.....and Gorging on Food

Today was move-in day, which went rather well- certainly better than moving out last May did. Unfortunately classes do not start until Tuesday, September 2nd, meaning I have a week ahead of me with no classes. It doesn't make very much sense to me to schedule move-in day so far in advance of the start of classes, and I really wish the retreat was this coming weekend and not the next one. I will probably go on a Go marathon sometime this week; hopefully it will coincide with a long winning streak, and a rank advancement.

Today I went to a restaurant called Grand Sichuan for dinner- the food was excellent, but I underestimated the size of the portions and ordered enough for two people. While I was hungry, I had eaten a fairly large lunch (Vietnamese noodles) earlier, so this was a bad idea. I wolfed down the first half or so of the food quickly, along with a lot of water (since this was a Sichuan restaurant, after all- the food was spicy).

I have had an instinctive compulsion, from a fairly young age, to finish whatever (good) food is on my plate (or in this case, 3 plates), and I tend to eat very quickly when by myself and not doing anything else. So I continued gorging down the food, until I was physically unable to eat more- that is, I felt I was going to throw up. It was only at this point that I finally did the sensible thing and called for my check and had the remaining food packaged so I could take it home with me. It is a little surprising to me that my instinctive response to finish my food was strong enough to get me continue eating for several minutes, despite my feeling very very full and my knowing that the food wouldn't be wasted because I could take it home.

Actually, in retrospect, perhaps I can eat that much food in one meal, but not with 3 glasses of water also. Of course, I can't eat hot, spicy, food very quickly without consuming copious amounts of water (or non-spicy food, but I didn't order any). In total, I think I consumed around 3000 calories in the span of 20 or so minutes- I've eaten that much in a meal before, but not in such a short time-but I can't really help eating fast when I'm at a restaurant by myself. For today, I'd guess I've had 5000-6000 calories, which is substantially higher than my usual. Since I'm trying to gain weight, I suppose that counts as a good thing (the total calorie intake, not the eating very fast part).