Have you ever found yourself craving something that you just can’t get your hands on or enough of it?
That’s me. I love steak, nice and rare and with fat on it. Lots of it. It’s just something that I remember from when I was a kid that makes me think of happy times. Back in the early 60’s, before my parents divorced, I was a skinny-minnie, crazy picky eater, and my mom worried that I wasn’t eating enough, so she used to make these big elaborate dinners with several courses to entice me to eat more. It was the rare fatty steak that I remember most fondly about those times.
Over the years as my life got more complicated, food took on a starring role, and I always ended up craving the kind of comfort food mom made, so I fattened up pretty quickly. Then by 11, diets came into the picture and all those foods I loved so much became forbidden, but that only made me want them that much more. My desperation to get them made me think of myself as a human garbage can.
In all my years as a dieter, I used to settle for foods I didn’t necessarily like all the time. But because I wasn’t supposed to have them, the desire to acquire and consume them won out and I always ended up overeating them and feeling disgusted with myself afterward. That rancid bag of chips found in the back of a forgotten cabinet, the overcooked pasta, bags of stale cookies, the ice cream with freezer fuzz on it. So many examples of losing my mind in pursuit of getting to eat the food.
I remember a time when my brother, David and I drove 75 miles into Long Island from Manhattan in search of a particular type of hotdog only sold at the 7-11 in Coram, NY. Insanity.
Once I learned how to honor my hunger and eat intuitively, seeking the greatest pleasure in food, and not willing to settle anymore I became a very picky eater and my periods of overeating reduced significantly. Such is my relationship with rare steak with fat. It’s got to be just so, or I won’t bother eating it.
Even on the occasions when I make it at home, many times it’s just not satisfying and I’ll end up not eating it because I don’t like it. It’s not the way I remembered it from my childhood. And when I go out to restaurants, with the exception of Japanese steak houses, I always find something wrong with the steak, and I end up sending it back. So to avoid that frustration, I’ve just stopped ordering it altogether when I eat out.
But a few years ago while traveling with the fam down South, I found a place called Golden Corral. They cook their steaks and include them as part of their buffet. Cooked on a huge grill right in front of you, you can make sure that you get it exactly as you want it. Love that. So whenever I’ve had the luck to find a Golden Corral, I’ll have the steak and make sure that I get it the way that I want it.
But the problem is that there are no Golden Corral restaurant locations near where I live, but for some reason I’m always seeing their ads on TV. It’s pretty frustrating, so I’ve been jonsing for a good steak lately.
When I found out that there was a Golden Corral near where we would be staying this weekend in Atlantic City, I planned a lunch stop there for the fam. I thought I had it all figured out. Now that they have a to-go option, I was going to pack plenty of steak and take it home for the week.
But yesterday when we arrived there, despite seeing the steak in all its juicy, fatty glory around me, I didn’t want any of it. I was so completely enjoying the salad and the spinach and the perfectly sautéed mushrooms and many other goodies that I just didn’t want the steak. I did end up taking a piece to go which I enjoyed cold in the room much later, after meticulously removing all the fat. (Cue the Superman theme.)
Why the fat? Because when I was a kid and put on my first diet, I lived with my dad and stepmother, Rosie. They cooked steak often like mom did, but I was always guilted into cutting off the fat and removing it to the side of the plate and not eating it. But quick thinking me, I used to offer to clear the table and once alone in the kitchen, I ate all the fat from everyone’s plates. Ha, I fooled them. And a couple times I even remember pulling it out of the garbage and eating it.
You can probably see that the obsession with being able to find and eat steak with fat runs deep for me. That’s why it was so shocking when I actually chose to eat a salad and veggies over my beloved steak for lunch. I call it the power of permission. I attribute my decision to choose not to eat the steak for lunch to my heightened awareness of how heavy and uncomfortable it makes me feel as opposed to how good it tastes. That’s become more real for me lately and it’s the new criteria for my food choices.
How ’bout you? What’s your version of the forbidden fruit? Click on comment and share your story.
Intuitive Eating, Empowerment, Choice