ac(COUNT)ability

Taming the appetite turns out to be quite the beast of burden for someone like me with a propensity for compulsive behavior. I eat. Maybe I’m a food addict… I’m certainly not a foodie… most people who’ve eaten my “cooking” would agree that I don’t seem to have a particularly sophisticated palette. But what I AM capable of is eating beyond hungry, beyond satisfied, beyond full. It’s annoying. When I started using my plate, taking note of what I ate and at what times, I was disturbed by the frequency with which I put food in my body. I was pretty much putting something in my mouth once an hour or so (didn’t even have to taste that good). It seemed clear I was satisfying an oral fixation, more so than pangs of hunger. It was a war: my mouth and hands vs. my stomach and mind. Hands and mouth had had the upper hand for a little too long. So I tried to find ways to make it hard to stomach the overly caloric, unhealthy stuff. I drank a couple of glasses of water before eating––stealing space (turns out the majority of the time we think we’re interpreting a hunger brain signal, we’re actually misinterpreting our body’s request for water). I ate hella fiber… anything for a false feeling of fullness. And because taste wasn’t that important to me, I made sure I had a good supply of healthy food.

I can’t figure out if it’s the smartest or dumbest piece of advice I’ve ever heard, but a personal trainer on the T.V show The Biggest Loser, recommended satisfying a craving for chocolate cake with a sugar-free piece of chewing gum. Um… okaaaaay…. If I want a chocolate cake, I don’t think a five-calorie stick of GUM will suffice! But I listened and allowed myself to develop a chewing gum addiction, which gave me something to put in my mouth when I wasn’t hungry but wanted to be chewing.  And of course I overdose on gum… but it’s better than overdosing on trail mix or granola bars or some other healthy snack (because I learnt that I could take something healthy and wonderful and make it my enemy––the thing hurting my cause).  4 or 5 granola bars, a super-sized fruit drink, oats and nuts cereal serving size for 5, still left me with 3000-4000 calories at the end of the day. It was better (than say a tub of icecream or whatever), but still hurting the cause.

Sometimes Hand, Mouth and Mind gang up on Stomach. It’s called denial. Denial is a powerful and useless beast. If I don’t write it down, it’s like I didn’t eat it. I don’t like to think about my slips, so I forgive myself for my transgressions pretty quickly and keep it moving. But if I don’t own it, then I don’t feel the need to make up for it at the gym, or even consider the fact that it’ll rear it’s ugly head in my weekly Wednesday weigh-in. Once I write it down, it happened and I can then deal with it. Secretly eating a brownie turns out to be the same amount of calories as eating it publicly. So I try to own it, accept it, and keep it moving (although public eating can have its own drama... and we can definitely talk about that). Same with weighing myself: I step on the scale every Wednesday, no matter what. If I pig out on Tuesday and feel like I know I’ll be heavier… not stepping on the scale doesn’t stop the weight gain. So I just do it, and whatever the number on Wednesday is, I own it. It’s the reality. Denial, avoidance, procrastination, and rationalization, that's easy, holding myself accountable, that's necessary.

Body Math: Food vs. Drink

Calories. Love 'em, hate'em, love to hate 'em... need 'em. I track what I eat through an online food journal called "My Plate" on the livestrong website
When I began to lose weight, i figured i ought to eat less than the daily recommended calories. I ought to eat less than 2000 calories. I figured, that was how much i had been eating all along anyway, right? wrong. so very very wrong. When i wrote down the calories i consumed each day (and I've never imagined myself a glutton of any sort), it turned out i was consuming anywhere between 3000 and 4000 calories daily. In what? Not chocolate cakes and McDonald's burgers... none of the usual suspects. I was easily wracking over 1000 calories every time i visited harmless seeming restaurants with my friends: a lovely little Chinese restaurant called Hunan garden (sesame chicken and brown rice), chicken quesadillas from Chevy's a couple of times a week, a little Thai curry... perfectly unassuming and tasty food.

But, to be honest... food was a smaller part of a larger consumption addiction. Anybody who conjures up an image of me as the social being I love to project completes the picture with a few Malibu and sprites (age 13 to 15), red red wine (age 16 to 18), corona light (age 19-20), long island ice tea (age 21), the return of the red (age 22-23), gin and tonic (age 24-24.5), water?! (age 24.5- present). I love social scenes, friends, people! a long conversation over the phone- occasion for some drinky-drink, a study session- celebrate the work almost accomplished with some "drank"!

I don't think there's anything wrong with alcohol. In fact, a glass of red is good for you, right? "A" glass. People love to dish out pearls of wisdom, going on and on about moderation. But here's the thing: I have a strong propensity towards compulsiveness. There is almost nothing, nothing, i have ever done in my life that i can say i did in moderation. From working to loving to drinking to partying to watching episodes of The Wire to you name it... when I commit, I commit. So, naturally, I was incapable of having "a" glass of wine after a hard day's work as i sat on the couch and chatted with my housemates... I'd have 4. And what that translated into over the course of time, was about 1000 to 1500 extra empty calories each day in pure alcohol. For the curious: gin and tonic (180 calories), corona (150), glass of red (160-ish) and the ever so delectable long island iced tea (780 calories). Now, apparently, if you eat on average 100 calories extra each day, over a year that can amount to a ten pound gain. So... it's not too surprising that by the time i was 24, I was over one hundred kilograms, social... but well... listening to doctor's telling me that i had a heart murmur, brought on by being technically obese at my weight. I've never told anybody that... I've been embarrassed. Every doctor I visited told me to lose weight. It made me thirsty for a nice cold glass of something delicious that would allow me to laugh the world and my so-called problem away.

As a 2010 new years resolution, I quit drinking. I was already 40 pounds lighter, eight months in. And to be real honest... I decided to quit drinking bent over a public Kenyan toilet looking at the contents of last night's dinner and drinks, the morning after a night I will never ever forget. It was gross. I was done. Turns out, I'm already a "liberated" and fun-having person whether i have a glass in my hand or not, so it wasn't all that challenging. I can still party till the break of dawn (inspired by a little red bull or some coffee) and make the kinds of mistakes I loved to make when i was intoxicated. I never blamed it on the alcohol... I knew it was me all along!