Coffee Club

Around the same time as I joined my weight loss group, I also joined a club for gay men 40 years old and older. We meet each Sunday at a coffee shop/artist's space in Hillcrest and just gab for an hour an a half. Truth be told I am the only one in my 40's and I am generous to describe most of other men as 50 years old and up. Well turns out that I enjoy the group a lot. It is good to be with other gay men around my age and it usually fluctuates between 8 and 14 attendees. It has lots of characters like Bill who is so flamboyant, chatty and witty - then there is Van the pot smoking, nudist, radical, and Johnnie who is a quiet, well mannered Filipino man. They have not noticed yet that I do not drink coffee(LOL) I always just buy a bottle of water. Usually they go out to eat after the 90 minutes of chatting. I always politely declined dinner, which they did notice, but only because I am worried about going out to eat in general. Portion control is a main key to weight loss but I am not too good at it in a restaurant so I was to afraid to go out to eat and end up eating too much. On Easter I decided it would be nice to go with them as how great is it to have dinner with friends on Easter. Well went to a diner and I got the turkey dinner special. I tried to be good but I did eat most of my dinner which was large. Bill commented on the amount of food I ate. It was not mean spirited but I was personally humiliated. To feel I am over eating is one thing but to have someone comment on it at all - well it was disheartening. My weight loss meetings are on Monday's and I did still lose weight on the next day so I was pleased to a degree. I did wonder if I could have done better and perhaps I could but I could not let any of this stop the momentum. Yesterday after our meeting they were going to get Chinese food. I wanted to go as I cannot find good Chinese here at all but the thought made me very nervous and I started to sweat. I still agreed and I went. I got a half order of cashew chicken and brown rice. I felt I did really well. The food was actually very good and I did not eat everything on the plate but I was definitely full. Plus there were no comments this time - yay. As I said, his comment last week was very innocuous - not malicious at all. I made no response as to how much it stuck me but felt so much more accomplished at the Chinese restaurant this week. Man I wish I could just go out to eat like normal people! I was internally giving myself some pats on the back yesterday when the kicker came - my fortune read: "You will soon have the opportunity to improve your finances". I have never wanted so bad in my life for a fortune to come true!