Eating out for the first time

[pintsizedmallrat 474]

On 6/1/2023 at 9:40 PM, LindsayT said:

How do you navigate people who don't know why we eat like we do; especially in the early months.

You ignore them. If I worried about what every server and other restaurant patron thought of what or how I ate, I would have starved to death by now. People love to judge, and some people like to get jealous if they feel like someone else has more willpower than them.

I will occasionally explain vaguely if a server asks if I didn't like something ("I had surgery on my stomach a while ago; It's delicious I'm just not able to eat much these days, but I'd love a box."), but some looky-loo from another table? I owe them nothing, and in fact it's a far bigger social transgression to stare at someone than it is to dare to eat less. They're the ones who are being rude.

[LindsayT 599]

36 minutes ago, pintsizedmallrat said:

You ignore them. If I worried about what every server and other restaurant patron thought of what or how I ate, I would have starved to death by now. People love to judge, and some people like to get jealous if they feel like someone else has more willpower than them.

I will occasionally explain vaguely if a server asks if I didn't like something ("I had surgery on my stomach a while ago; It's delicious I'm just not able to eat much these days, but I'd love a box."), but some looky-loo from another table? I owe them nothing, and in fact it's a far bigger social transgression to stare at someone than it is to dare to eat less. They're the ones who are being rude.

Great points. Thanks!

[Nepenthe44 188]

My family is big on eating out so I started going to restaurants again at 3 weeks. At 5 weeks, we went to our usual Mexican restaurant which doesn't have Soup, so I ordered a shrimp cocktail with steamed or boiled shrimp in a Tomato sauce.

I brought my food scale and ate ~1.75 oz of shrimp, which was 4 medium, without the chunky part of the sauce. Ended up having that for another 4-5 meals.

I just took it slow and chewed really well.

When a server asks if that's all I'm having, I say yes. If they asked if I liked it, I say I loved it, which is always true because anything that's not a Protein Shake tastes amazing to me.

They don't want or require an explanation. Their concerns are a) did I miss some of this person's order and b) is there something wrong with the food.