It’s time for me to admit it: I have a terrible addiction, and it’s destroying my life. No, it isn’t alcohol. I know how to moderate my intake of booze just fine. I drink only small amounts of tequila on Fridays and Saturdays (and on the occasional Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, or Monday). My addiction is much more dangerous than alcohol. You see, I don’t need alcohol to live. I could quit tequila cold turkey—in fact, I have sworn directly to the toilet to do so about 80 times. Unfortunately, I’m addicted to something I’m required to consume every single day: food.
You can’t quit food cold turkey. If you did, you would die in about a week. Instead, I’m forced to moderate my intake of the very stuff I’m addicted to, which is quite a challenge, especially when there are so many tacos around. We don’t ask crack addicts to just smoke crack three times a day. We tell crack addicts to stay away from crack. Well, I can’t completely stay away from crackers. I need crackers to live.
Putting food in my mouth is one of my greatest talents. The problem is my body, for some unknown medical reason, just can’t seem to process all of the food I’ve been giving it. Instead of an eating disorder, I feel as if I have a calorie-burning disorder. My body needs to step up its game and try to keep up with my hands and mouth. Apparently, my mouth is an overachiever and my stomach is somewhat of a slacker.
I think the biggest problem may be the communication between my stomach and my brain. There seems to be this enormous delay in time between my stomach telling my brain I’m hungry—and then me quickly eating 3,000 calories—and my stomach telling my brain, “OK, that’s enough. We’re full now.” By the time my stomach tells my brain there’s no more room for pancakes and to stop eating, my hands and mouth have already shoveled in another 1,000 calories of butter and syrup. My body feels bloated and there’s nothing I can do about it at that point. My body has to deal with this extra food by storing all these additional calories into fat cells around my belly. To me, this is a ridiculous way for my body to handle these extra calories. Why store this stuff? My body should know that we don’t need to store calories inside fat cells to be saved for a rainy day. My hands and mouth never fail in providing more than enough calories to survive—no storage is required. Plus, everybody knows on a rainy day we order pizza.
As a person who doesn’t take responsibility for anything that’s happening to him—don’t judge, it’s a generational thing—I blame this food addiction for my enormous gut. I also blame cupcakes. Cupcakes are good, like, really good—like, “I’ll cut you to get one before you do” good. I don’t know why there aren’t people on every street corner of America pimping cupcakes. I know I would pick up aluminum cans and bottles to pay for some sweet-tasting cupcakes.
With all of these cupcakes around, my need for food three times—OK, in days that end in “y,” I eat five times a day—and the physiological issues of my body misunderstanding hunger signals, I’m guaranteed to become a totally fat dude. How can I possibly cure myself of my food addiction when there are Cheetos and Pepsi to be consumed? This is the circle of life. Cheetos make my teeth orange and the acid in the Pepsi clears it all away, as well as some of the enamel from my teeth. It’s a wonderful, tasty, and cyclical process. Who am I to stop the cycle? My body needs carbonated water laced with syrup and sugar, and my body needs cheese. Without these things, I don’t see a reason to continue living.
Some people might say I need to exercise more. Those people are skinny elitist jerks who were born with the metabolism of a tiger inside a mouse’s body. Some people are just lucky that way. I was born with the appetite of a hippo and the exercise regimen of a house cat. I could run the Boston Marathon every single day and still I wouldn’t burn enough calories to handle the intake of food I’m putting into my mouth. It isn’t exercise I need; I just need to eat less food. But I can’t eat less because food tastes so, so good. There is cheesecake out in the world and it’s sitting there calling to me. It needs to be consumed. There are starving babies in Africa. It would be wrong to throw good food in the trash when I can eat it and get fatter.
My wife, whom I love, has tried to put me on a diet. It makes me hate her. When I get hungry, I get ornery. She makes me eat fruits and vegetables like carrots and apples. But I like carrot cake and apple pie. My wife says I need to eat better to remain healthy. With my food addiction, will I have a heart attack soon? Survey says, yes. But I feel pretty good about it. This is America; the doctors here know more about heart attacks than most other doctors in the world. The chances are I will come out of the hospital just fine. And the best news about surgery is when you’re done … ice cream!
Rob has decided to stop lying to himself about dieting and to just go buy some bigger pants. Contact him through the managing editor at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 21-28, 2013.
