Balance of Food

Cartoon courtesy of Pearls and Swine Anybody who has been to college or a grocery store on a Saturday morning knows what free food is. The samples (and subsequent coupons) in a grocery store aisle are a great way to learn about a new product.

But everything we eat is part of our food consumption for the day. After all, everything counts. The "free" granola samples have calories. The popcorn in the bar has calories. The chicken wings at the event have calories.

This doesn't mean free food is bad. As a part of your daily consumption, free food can be fun and psychologically enjoyable. But you have to be careful to subtract from the rest of your daily eating.

If you are aiming for 1,800 calories, and you eat 300 calories in the grocery store and 500 calories during happy hour, that leaves you with 1,000 calories to be spread across three meals, and that doesn't include the drinks at the bar.

There is also the psychology of the free food. It's free, so you are inclined to eat more than you otherwise would. But that can be dangerous to your overall diet.

If you honestly don't run across extensive amounts of free food, then an occasional indulgence isn't a big deal. It might even be your indulgence for the week. But many people have such temptations as a regular part of their lives.

I recall one such evening on a business trip to Atlanta. I was getting reimbursed for my food expenses on this trip at $40 a day. Breakfast and lunch were covered that day, so I could spend all the money on dinner.

But I decided to get my money's worth. After the meetings, I attended an Atlanta Braves game where I had my share of ballpark food. I had a good-sized, ballpark meal, probably a hot dog or two and nachos with a soft drink.

I had plenty of "food money" even after filling myself at the ballpark. So I decided to do a late dinner at a steak place in downtown Atlanta. There was no reason to be eating at that hour except that if I didn't, the money would have been lost. Essentially, the steak dinner was "free." But if I didn't eat it, I couldn't get the meal tomorrow.

So when I got back to the hotel late that night, I had consumed a lot of food. A regular dinner, plus steak, fries, and a couple of trips to the salad bar with more soft drinks. I can't even begin to think how many calories I had, and that didn't include breakfast or lunch.

I got to bed a little after 1 a.m., but unfortunately, my sleep was short-lived. About 4:15 a.m., the fire alarm went off. Twice. Besides being unnerved (we were pretty high up in the hotel) about the fire alarm, for some reason I had a difficult time getting back to sleep.

Having that much food resting in your stomach would make it difficult to go back to sleep. I finally drifted off to sleep about 6 a.m.

I certainly paid a price for having eaten all that food. I also probably gained a pound or two from that night, something I certainly didn't need at that point of my life. Even if there wasn't a fire alarm, I still ate too much food.

When I started to eat better, it was psychologically difficult to let go of the idea that even though it was free, I didn't have to eat it. Boy that was tough.

So now I do sample in the grocery store and may munch on a pretzel in a bar. But I factor that into the rest of my calories and cut back somewhere else in my diet -- most of the time. I do find that by being aware of it, so even when I do "cheat," I don't do as much as I used to do.