Buffet Tactics

A major factor in my drastic weight gain over the past few years has been the lunch buffets available for all types of cuisines where I live. Please observe how I didn't use the terms "cause" or "reason" or "culprit". I realize that I am solely to blame for my weight gain and also for my failure to lose weight. I'm not looking for applause for making these distinctions either. I'm just setting the stage for this post which isn't going to be about maxing out the buffet the experience in as much as it'll be about preventing the buffet the experience from maxing you out on the scales. Let's move on.

Buffets were what you did for lunch where I worked. Pay your $7-9 and take trip after trip at your pace. Appetizer course. Main course. Dessert course. Substitute and or repeat as needed. It was great. But as others maintained a consistent regimen of work and exercise outside of work, I ate even more fast food and prepackaged food on beteen work, night school, and the time I spent plopped in fron t of the TV. Shame on me.

And that's how it went for years for almost every work day. Chinese buffet, Mexican buffet, Ryan's, Shoney's, and even a Pizza Hut buffet were part of my office's lunch clique's regular rotation. Looking back, it was all so sinister.

And as I mentioned at the start, the buffet was not the only factor involved with my weight gaine. If it were, I would have lost the weight for the two years I lived/worked in another state. But I didn't as I had plenty of other bad habits.

It was no surprise to me that when I moved back to town after two years that all my buddies wanted to meet up at a buffet during their lunch break. Just like the "good" old times. A new restaurant this time but a buffet nonetheless. And a Chinese buffet at that, which was my weakness.

And so I went, and then I knew I was fat. Even the mousiest waitress there took a half-step back and stared as I lumbered into the joint. The host hesitantly asked if I needed a table for one. Now, there's nothing sadder than a fat guy eating at a buffet by himself. Simply eating at a restaurant by yourself, excluding eating at a diner counter, is sad to me, but to be fat and to eat at a buffet, well, it's sad. And I had been mistaken for that guy by this host. So I guess I was that guy. It implies so many things. For instance it could mean that you have no friends at all, none that can tolerate eating the same things you do, or none that can tolerate being around you when you eat. It also means that you might have an eating disorder such as one where you eat large amounts very often. In short, solo buffet dining could be likened to solo alcohol consumption.

But I digress. The host look glad to hear me say that I was meeting some friends, and my friends waved me over almost instantaneously. I promptly placed my beverage order (Diet Coke, for the taste of it) and proceeded to confound my friends with just one visit to the buffet.

And that's my new buffet tactic: ONE VISIT. That's it.

It simply involves changing one's attitude towards the buffet meal. Contrary to what some restaurants say when they condescendingly post those insulting "All you CARE to eat" signs, I've never seen a buffet as an invitation to test my consumptive mettle. And I've never seen two people engaged in an eating contest like those with pies, buffalo wings, or hot dogs at the fair. What a buffet does for me is trigger my natural human foraging/gathering instinct that has propelled the species forward through time as we know it. It all goes back to the first time man thought to himself, "I better eat as much as I can while I can because who know what the future holds?" The one-visit tactic involves reminding oneself that in this day and age, if you can afford to go eat at a buffet, then there's probably a good chance that you have either the food or the resources to get said food later on in the day or in your life.

And so, I approached the buffet with the mindset that it was one pass and I'd better get a little bit of my all-star favorites. I should note that I used a soup bowl to hold about a cup od steamed white rice also. I loaded up my plate, which did look ridiculous, but the amount of food on my plate was far less than my usual 2-3 plate trips combined. I usually don't get dessert.

I threw my friends off their pattern. I think out of politeness they were waiting for me to finish my current plate and go back up together like the "good" old days. Finally, one friend just kind of announced that he was going up, and then I cheerfully said, "Oh yeah, sure, don't let me keep you, I'm good." And that cleared up any confusion. They cheerfully rallied their forces and attacked the General Tso's with extreme prejudice. I still had food to eat.

The new tactic has allowed me to not be completely anti-social and still get my Chinese food fix. But what can you do when you don't want to eat out at a Chinese buffet and don't want the expense and over-sized portions of delivery? Well, there's a "buffet-to-go", and that's another post. Coming up...