Eating Our Way Out Of Quarantine
OK let’s face the reality that it is very easy to eat our way through this quarantine. In fact, most of us have probably eaten without abandon during this time at some point. I know I have.
I wish it were boring to eat, but out of the total of four things to do during the lockdown, eating is sometimes the most fun. The other three things would obviously be watching TV, going on social media and ignoring emails from work asking you to work.
The truth is I don’t buy ‘bad food’ anymore, so when I want to binge, I end up binging on things like edamame and quinoa. If you don't know what those two things are how to pronounce them, you don't need to find out. It’s not really fun to overeat healthy food.
It kind of defeats the purpose of overeating. Like last night I ate a frozen lean chicken power bowl after dinner, didn’t even like it, and then felt like barfing because I ate too much. The whole experience was completely lame and unsatisfying.
It’s very anticlimactic to basically binge on salad. If I’m going to get fat during this quarantine, this is not how I want to do it. If I’m gonna get fatter, I want to do it on my terms, with delicious fatty carbohydrate filled goodness. I want bread and cake.
I want all the stuff, chocolate, and french fries. I mean if you are going to do something you might as well do it whole-heartedly. I might have to stop writing this and write a snack. I meant eat, but my mouth is too busy watering. The struggle is real.
But I won’t do it. I won’t eat all the stuff again. I won’t do it because I remember being 100 pounds heavier than I was. I won’t do it because I got Bariatric surgery in order to lose weight, that’s how desperate I was. I won’t do it because I love myself more than cake. Not by much, but I do.
I put on six pounds this holiday season and then lost it. I put on six pounds during the first two weeks of quarantine so far and have not lost it, but am not gaining anymore. I said in an earlier post that I had not gained any weight, and I stand by that. This is not real weight, this is transitory weight. It’s not real weight, it’s more like gravity, it’s just a little extra gravity, OK?
Yes, this is what denial looks like.
Hmmm…
Overall, I’m going to give myself a B+ on this one. I mean it’s not great, but I’m not gaining back the 100 pounds I lost last year. The thing is, I of all people know about emotional eating. This is an emotional time. We need comfort. Food comforts.
I get it.
So what am I going to do about this? Exactly what you are going to do. I am going to do the best I can. That’s all we can do, right?
I ate butter pecan ice cream for dinner with crunchy peanut butter melted on top last night. The only decadent food we have in the house is ice cream. Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for me food-wise. I was having some existential angst. Like why am I even alive kind of angst. My spirit was hungry for answers and I gave it food instead. But today I’m better, I’ll get my protein in, I’m even planning on eating a vegetable. Big plans.
In all seriousness, this might be a good time to try to be healthy only because it is always a good time to try to be healthy. Killer virus or not, it helps to not eat crap all the time and then wonder why we are sick all the time.
But honestly when you are as bored as we are a lot of the time, what else is there to do but eat? I have started being creative. I mean that literally. When I want to eat, I write instead. But even writing is losing its appeal and it's not nearly as fun as chocolate. I plan on going outside more as the weather gets better.
The government is not helping, Mc Donald's is open and considered an essential establishment. What's next, Dairy Queen?
Food used to be my best friend. But it betrayed me. It made me sick and sad. Food is not a good friend. But food is not the enemy either. Food is just nourishment, that is all it should be. Yeah, I mean it’s fun to eat. Believe me, I know. But it’s more fun to feel good about yourself and be healthy.
So what to do as the time just ticks by so slowly?
I’m going to try not to eat my feelings. If I feel something, I’m going to sit with it. Just sit with my feelings, good or bad. Just be them. Let them go through me.
There is another side they can go to. There is a trash can on this computer in my head and I want to send all these garbage thoughts into that rather than throw garbage in my body. But the thing about trash cans on computers is that the trash doesn’t leave unless you empty it. You have to let it go.
Being empty is a goal in Buddhism. Emptiness.
When you are a lover of food like me, eating seems the antithesis of emptiness. And it is.
I have a complicated relationship with food. As many people do. And the only way I can fight the urge to overeat is to occupy my mind. I know that sounds simple, but is it really? How does one occupy the mind?
And maybe it is not just my mind I need to fulfill, but I need to feed my soul. It is hungry for something. I think sometimes when I eat it is because my soul feels empty, but in a bad way empty. It feels as though I am nothing.
So what are the things that fill my soul?
Music, writing, poetry, fiction, TV, movies. Talking to friends and family. Laughing. And the list goes on.
These are the only things that can help me go on. Especially during this time of great upheaval. These are the times that try men’s souls. Who said that?
I’m saying that, we are on trial here. To see if we can make it through great hysteria and madness and death and destruction. If we can make it to the other side without losing our souls. And gaining a second body.
Yes the mind is important, but what moves you? What really makes you tick? Do that. Be that.
And in the meantime, think about all the good things that you will be able to eat when this is all over. The first thing I'm going to do when we get out is get brunch.
We only have time right now. None of us wants to turn into an elephant by the end of this, but how will we make it?
We will make it, by the way.
It’s just a matter of how and how much we will weigh when it all ends.
nina