I have this condition—I’m not really sure what to call it—when you spend an entire weekend stuffing your face, causing your stomach the ultimate confusion of wanting you to constantly shove food down your throat, even after you’ve made the conscious decision to revert back to the old system of eating light. I’m sure I’m not the only one who suffers, or has suffered from this—it must date back to when cavemen existed. Maybe they had these giant feasts after they killed off a bison or something and then had to go back to surviving off a meager gathering of nuts and berries (or whatever it is they were able to pick at) and had this same feeling of intense hunger post-bison feast. It’s like when you wear the same outfit after a long night of partying, making known your current slor status—so does that constant gurgling and growling of your underbelly give away your weekend gluttony.
The Growl of Shame.
My mom laughs at me for wanting to keep the contents of the fridge stripped to a bare minimal, but there’s always a method to my madness. If I’m at home not doing anything—I dive head-first into the fridge to fight my boredom with snacks. It’s not productive to maintaining a healthy weight, or sanity for that matter, but it seems to satisfy whatever lull you may be faced with at that exact point in time. Except when you’re forced to stay at home for an extended period of time, those dull moments are never few or far between. Before you know it you’ve ingested an entire can of Pringle potato chips, a snack pack of granola and maybe a few sugar snap peas within an hour. Not to mention having 4th, 5th or even 6th meal, maybe even 7th meal. What if our first reaction was to do Yoga or something? Would we all be super flexible models of health and wellness?
I’m only 40 minutes away from the lunch hour and yet I’m already starving. Okay fine I was starving an hour ago, but that’s beside the point. You’re supposed to get past a certain point after your stomach starts realizing that it’s plea for food isn’t going anywhere—you suppose those hunger pains would subside—but they haven’t. On a normal day, maybe they do, but after a full-fledged weekend of gorging they remain for long periods of time.
I keep stuffing my face with water, somehow attempting to convince myself that I’m really thirsty and not hungry, but we all know that’s a lie. I get that some scientist a long time ago said that your body could just be confusing hunger for dehydration, but trust me when I say, I drank well over a gallon of water yesterday and am about 1/3 of a gallon in today—it’s not thirst. You’re supposed to pile on the protein to prevent these sudden intense feelings of hunger, and in my defense I had two eggs, brown rice and green beans for breakfast, that should at least afford me close to 20 grams of protein—enough to get me through to noon, but so far it hasn’t sufficed.
So what do we do when we’re stuck in this conundrum? I know what you’re thinking. This is really all my fault. Had I just conducted myself like any other reasonable human being, I might not be in this predicament in the first place. You see, caveman probably went weeks or months before they were able to kill off a big ass bison. I only go for a week before I crush the 2015 equivalent of said bison. Then the vicious cycle starts again—and again—and again.
I was sitting at work and this 110-pound woman blurts out, “I have a craving for McDonalds, but I just had In-N-Out last week!” I bit my tongue for a second, but only because I was trying to process what she just said. People still get cravings for McDonald’s? Aren’t we past that? Isn’t that why they’re shutting down 15% of their restaurants? Before I could mutter another sentence she responded to herself with, “I made myself sick ordering my burger animal style with extra sauce!” I was tempted to ask what her time frame was between feasting/cheat meals/greasy hamburger and normal submission to 1000-calorie per day status, but I didn’t. I couldn’t get past the fact that she was on the verge of eating a cheeseburger meal for lunch while I had been dreaming about my turkey lunch meat/spinach/Greek yogurt combo platter for the last 2 hours. It’s just not fair, right?
Metabolism is a sneaky POS. So are fat cells. Wouldn’t it have been more beneficial to explain the fat-cell theory to me as a child and install the fear of obesity in me at 4 years old? Some days I think so. Is it not beneficial to show pictures of sexually transmitted diseases to semi-sexually active teenagers? Of course it is. So then why not show pictures of morbidly obese people to grade-school kids?
But the difference between her and I are both simple and complex. She loves indulging part of the time and I love indulging all of the time. Obviously her genetics play a part, but really let’s face it—she wins the mental battle. She’d rather cheat during one measly meal, while I’ll likely maintain 30 additional pounds of pesky visceral fat all in the name of having Yogurtland whenever the heck I please.
Control. That’s really all it is? You can control what you put in your mouth. You can control your metabolism somewhat. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Are there going to be times when all you really want are pork spare ribs drenched in some gloriously sticky barbeque sauce? Duh. Are there going to be times when you put the cookie down and grab an apple instead. Likely. You’ll both feast and fumble, but after the sun sets in the evening and rises the next day, you’ll be able to start fresh.
Maybe even one of these weekends, I won’t overdo it. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. And with that, there’s a pack of celery and peanut butter that’s calling my name. If you listen closely, somewhere, something just as delicious is calling yours to.
Feast or Fumble 