About

Me vs. a table full of food in Hawaii. Guess who won.

Like almost everyone in America, I’ve been struggling with food most of my life. Growing up in a house with a moderate income and five other people, it was imperative to eat as much as you could at any given meal to make sure you got enough food to be full. It was also imperative to eat quickly; who knows how many hamburger patties would be left if you took your time eating the first one. Unfortunately, these traits of survival of the fittest have been hardwired into my brain and, even though it is now just Girlfriend and I, I still exhibit the same animal instinct to eat quickly and in bulk. Combine that eating with a lifestyle that revolved for a number of years around being stationary; the results have not been pretty.

But now, with Girlfriend’s help (and support. And loving forcefulness), I am trying to accomplish the goal of Being Healthy, which somehow seems to be All-American and Anti-American at the same time. I now go to the gym. I take the dog for walks. In August, I will reach one year as a non-smoker. The biggest challenge, though, is food. Changing the way I eat it, changing the way I think about it, changing the way I act around it. Because, as Girlfriend and I somehow missed out on the trait that makes us want to have a herd of babies, I’ve also missed out on whatever mechanism it is that tells me when I’m full, and so I eat. And eat. And eat some more. And if you have any leftovers, I’ll eat those as well.

I also just plain love to eat. It might be my favorite hobby. I spend most of my disposable income on food, whether it be grocery shopping or going out to eat at a nice restaurant or getting a sampling of beer. Did I mention I also love beer? Because I do. And French fries. And chips. Oh, complex carbohydrates, how you haunt me.

So, I figured wanting to be healthy but not being able to stop yourself from turning into a claw machine when there’s a plate of food within reach is a pretty common human condition, especially these days. And since I have zero willpower and an overwhelming love of Ranch dressing, maybe if I can somehow pull this off, someone else will find they are able to reach into the very darkest depths of their inner being and shut off the little GPS in the back of their head that knows where to find every Wendy’s in a ten mile radius.

Good luck to the both of us.