I hear you- I think an alternate way to view this is that I had acclimated myself to preferring the short-term dopamine hit of going out to a nice meal or havin

I hear you- I think an alternate way to view this is that I had acclimated myself to preferring the short-term dopamine hit of going out to a nice meal or having drinks with friends over the long term happiness of being more financially secure. I do truly feel a lot of this stems from my single days when you had a zero percent chance of meeting someone unless you were out someplace. Now its just a very antiquated habit. I do a lot of cooking, and agree there as well. We have a lot of processes that sped up our food preparation and maintained say 90% of the original quality of the product, but those losses add up and while there is much we can measure in terms of what makes our food good in terms of taste and nutrition, there seems to be much we can not. There may only be a subtle difference between chicken soup made with canned stock or bullion when you are sitting at the table, but I make my own stock, and often find a bowl of soup made from it for lunch will fill me until dinner easily, a can of Campbell's, not so much. Especially since quarantine started, I have done tons more cooking, often of rich "slow" food. My friends have asked how much weight I have gained, and I have actually lost a few pounds despite getting much less activity in. I find myself much more content with smaller portion sizes, perhaps the net calories are actually fewer.