Eating out: Inconvenience & awkward feelings

Photo cred to Jess Barker

As anyone with classical PKU will know, for the most part eating out at restaurants is hardly an enjoyable experience. In fact, it can end up being a time filled with nothing but stress and awkwardness. Some of you might even just rather avoid going out for meals altogether because you know how difficult it can be. Although eating out is a much simpler and pleasant ordeal for me these days, it has definitely not always been this easy. As I’ve mentioned before, from birth right up until being about 19 years old I was living the life of a classical PKU patient. Sometimes I forget how far I have really come with my diet, but I was reminded of this fact when me and my friend recently went out to Pizza Express (something which definitely wouldn't have been an option for me some years back) and we got chatting about how it used to be...

When I was younger my family probably didn’t eat out as much as the average family did solely because of the inconvenience of it, but I remember that when we did, it was always difficult. Careful consideration and planning had to be applied even when deciding on the restaurant, as not every place was bound to offer food I could have. This impacted on the sort of lifestyle we adopted; it’s very difficult to live spontaneously when you have to pre- plan everything. We had to take weighing scales with us and then usually ask for a spare plate to weigh my food onto. As I was following a very strict diet growing up, it was essential that my food was weighed out. This wasn’t something we could just brush aside and forget about, even on a rare occasion. As I started to get older I became more aware of just how awkward this whole situation was. I felt so embarrassed having to weigh out my food, whilst everyone else around me could just eat without any fuss. It was at times like these in which I felt quite down and frustrated at my PKU.

The food itself was obviously the biggest issue and my choices were usually quite limited. I would go for either salads or vegetables, foods that I knew to be low in protein. I avoided meals such as pasta dishes or pizzas, although I remember once going to an Italian and asking them to make me a pizza up using my own low- protein pizza base, which they were more than happy to do.

Photo cred to Jess Barker

When I was 9 years old, me and my family went to Disneyland in America for 2 weeks which is probably one of the biggest challenges we have faced with my diet. In that situation we were sometimes forced to eat out if we were at the parks all day. I found my choices to be even more limited there as most places were fast- food which I couldn't eat. I'm pretty sure I ended up living off nothing but chips for 2 weeks - of course it was all completely worth it for Disneyland!

Growing up as a teen, I naturally began to go out more with my friends. Although it was sometimes difficult, I didn’t want to feel left out so I tried to find ways around it. Sometimes we would go to the cinema and then to some fast- food restaurant afterwards. I would usually just opt for a few small bags of chips which I knew to have about 1 gram of protein in each. I found that even the vegetarian options in McDonald’s were just far too high in protein for me (although this is something that I can now eat). I’ll be honest, it was difficult because as a teenager I wanted nothing more than to fit in, but this was the closest I felt I got to that.

I’ve come a long way since the days of the weighing scales. Now living ‘off diet’, I’m able to walk into pretty much any restaurant and choose whatever I like (even if it is a vegetarian option).

A similar post you might like, where I discuss in more depth about my past negative feelings of my PKU: https://thepkulife.blogspot.com/2018/01/its-okay-to-not-feel-okay-about-your.html