Another Hungry Day

At this point, I've lost a little more than 85 pounds on Weight Watchers. I'm actually smaller right now than I was all through college. In fact, I can only remember weighing this amount or less two times since middle school: once was the summer between high school and college when I went on Atkins pretty religiously for a couple months and got down to 211 pounds for a day (before shooting back up to 215...but still. And then I started eating like a human again and gained it all back.). The second time was the summer after college when I was super poor and had to choose between food and vodka and I chose vodka for a month or so...I starved myself down to 216 pounds. Again, that was only for about a week before my grandparents took pity on me and started buying me food.

The rest of the time since middle school, my weight has swung wildly from 225 pounds up to my highest (recorded) weight of 304 pounds. Now my scale has been fluctuating 213 pounds and 219 pounds. Not bad.

Buuuut...I am STILL OBSESSED WITH FOOD.

I wish things had changed. I wish I could live like a normal person and eat when I'm hungry, socialize without thinking about food the entire time, plan my day without thinking first about what I'll eat that day. But that's not me. That's not my life. Instead, I think about food when I wake up in the morning. Hell, sometimes I dream about food. Yeah. Some weekends when I have nothing going on and can sleep in as late as I want to, I get up ONLY because I want to eat.

There are all those little tricks people tell you about, like doing something else for 15 minutes and then eating only if you still really want the food after 15 minutes. Or having a little nibble of whatever you're craving and then stopping because your body doesn't care how much it gets, only that it gets something. Well...that's bullshit. When I try to do something else and reevaluate if I want the food in 15 minutes, I just spend a full 15 minutes thinking entirely about food. And if I just have a nibble, then it's even worse and I can't think about anything else in the world until all of the food is gone. Nibbles do not work for me. I am too obsessed with eating and with being full.

Weight Watchers has been amazing in helping me lose weight, and it kind of works with my food obsession. I can track and pre-track and plan my meals well in advance and, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to weigh and measure every morsel of food that you consume. But it also means that I can never just 'let go' and eat without thinking about it. That's a good thing, but it's also incredibly frustrating.

Like today, for instance. I am HUNGRY. Or that's the message my brain is getting. I know I'm not actually, literally hungry. I have food in my stomach. I am eating roasted new potatoes and onions and zucchini with vegetable broth and barbecue and shaved parmesan and it's spicy and warm and delicious, but I still want more. More of anything. I want to cram food into my mouth until I feel sick.

You know that scene in Matilda? Where the Trunchbull makes that kid Bruce eat the whole chocolate cake and he's all sweating and everything thinks he's going to pass out and die? Yeah, I could totally eat that cake. Not a question. There is no doubt in my mind that I could take a fork, settle myself in front of it, and just devour the entire freaking thing. Totally. And I'd love it. And I would ask for milk to wash it down.

Of course, a single slice of cake is something like 14 Points Plus on Weight Watchers. I get 34 Points per day and I am stingy as hell with them, so there's no way Cook's chocolate cake is coming anywhere near my lips. But I could do it. And it would be fucking awesome.

So when does this food obsession go away? Does it ever? Will I ever be able to see an office email about cupcakes without spending the rest of the day eyeing the cupcakes, weighing the pros and cons of eating a cupcake, wondering how good the cupcake is, getting panicky that too many people are eating cupcakes before I decide whether or not I want one? Or is this my life now? Where every food commercial makes me start to drool, and just driving past KFC gives me thoroughly un-vegetarian-like cravings?

When my best friend died two years ago, I thought the pain would never go away. I thought that every day would be a gray haze and I would never be okay again. Slowly, somehow, the pain receded. Instead of thinking about him every minute, I thought about him maybe every 15 minutes. And then maybe every hour. And then a couple times a day. Now, I love him and miss him and think about him at random wonderful and heartbreaking times, but it's not constant. I think of him when his favorite song comes on, or when I read a CNN article that would have gotten his attention. The point is, it got better. It took awhile, but it did definitely get better.

My food cravings though? Not better. It's been more than a year since I started Weight Watchers, and I'm thinking about food just as much as every. WHEN WILL IT END?!

For now...fuck it all, I'm getting that cupcake they emailed about. There are only three left and it's driving me fucking crazy. At least it's a mini cupcake.