The Appetite I Lost
My relationship with food has always been hit or miss. I don’t know what to eat. I know how much to eat, thankfully. This has protected me from getting fat. I grew up with very limited options for food; we weren’t that rich. We never had to worry about what to prepare for dinner. The worry was where the food would come from.
From that point, I grew up to have abundance. I can have anything I want, from any expensive restaurant I can think of. But the hunger has disappeared. I don’t have any excitement left for food. I treat it as fuel to be consumed because the body requires it to sustain itself. So I eat whenever I can, even when I don’t feel hungry.
It’s easy for me to quit junk food because there is no temptation. The age when temptations enter into associative memory was when I was struggling to figure out whether I would get to eat or not. I was training myself to stay hungry so I wouldn’t become a burden on my family.
So people who don’t know my past, when they see me without any temptation for food, think I have attained contentment. They don’t see my struggle when I am at a buffet. I used to ask my wife what to eat, what each food tasted like, or whether I should eat it. I used to try food from her plate. I have consumed enough to know which ones suit me better. But when she’s not there, I am still afraid of trying new food.
The side effect of all this is that I can live without food. If I am cutting down on junk, no matter how hungry I am, I will not be tempted by pizza. It blows everybody’s mind when they see this level of control. It’s not control. My body is just so well trained to being hungry.
Sometimes, the worst things that happen to you can lead to the best outcomes. I don’t know whether what I suffered through was good, but look at it now: when the world is exploding with garbage food, I am glad I cannot identify with food choices.