Portion Control

Yesterday evening a friend had a small group of us over to his house for pinball, pizza and a movie. We chose Far From Heaven which was good in its way but was a complete downer as far as "party videos" are concerned. I brought a bottle of champagne, and Partner picked up a sampler cheesecake from the store. We all ended up drinking Capt & Cokes, so Rob kept the champagne for later. At the end of the evening, he made us take home the leftover cheesecake since no one else wanted to.

Fast forward to this evening's dinner. I made my usual (low sodium) vegetable soup with added chicken, garlic, onion, spinach, ramen noodles and hot sauce. It's cheap, easy and relatively healthy. While Partner was eating his bowl, he informed me that there was more in the pan for me to finish. I asked him if he got enough - or maybe if he didn't like it - and he said it was "portion control." The implication, of course, is that he's trying to get healthy and possibly lose weight by limiting the size of his portions. Great, right?

Later we were watching Rescue Me season one on dvd, and Partner helped himself to a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. Hmm. I got up to make myself a cup of decaf coffee, and when I looked in the fridge for the soy milk, I saw the platter of cheesecake. Deciding to get myself half a slice, I put the platter on the counter and...that's when I stepped on something. I bent over and grabbed the offending crumb, which was a crumbly bit (nut? chocolate chip?) from the cheesecake. But, I hadn't even opened the platter yet. It was then that I realized that a whole piece of cheesecake was missing. Of course I realized what had happened, but I found it too funny to get angry about. Instead, I jokingly asked Partner about it.

"Guess what I just stepped on....A piece of cheesecake. How do you think that got on the floor?....Oh, so you had a piece after you got home from work?....Didn't you have dessert after dinner?....What was it you told me about not finishing a bowl of vegetable soup?"

That's right. In Partner's mind, he was being healthy by limiting his portion of vegetable soup and fresh spinach. On the other hand, he felt fine about eating a whole slice of cheesecake, taking a two-hour nap, and then eating ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert.

Needless to say, I'll be using this for a long time. This saying has legs!