the great binge of 10/13/09

occasionally, there are times i eat because i'm hungry, but more often, it's because i have problems to ignore. i have dozens of excuses to eat: my cat died and i'm sad, i have a big project due and i'm stressed, the sky is blue and i'm 24, and while i usually have obvious motivations for eating, there are times when i'm eating with such unfathomable fervor that the only logical conclusion is that the wrath of god is passing through me in a storm of gluttony.

i can blow through a kitchen like a gale force hog tornado and devour everything with sugar in under 60 seconds. my dad found me passed out on the couch once with chocolate around my mouth, pizza on my shirt, a packet of sugar nestled between my cheek and gums and an empty can of sweetened condensed milk in my clenched fist. (i'm just kidding; i was actually awake when he caught me in the kitchen, panting.)

obviously, i know that my metabolism will eventually slow down and so i've enlisted the help of a graphic designer friend to generate an image of what i might look like in a few years without an intervention:



Age progression sponsored by Kraft.








today was one of those days when sugar entered my body indiscriminately. i ate a kit kat, a twix, three baby ice creams, cookies and even a fistful of chocolate calcium chews (even though i'm pretty sure the ones i ate were formulated for women). i was eating as though i'd just spent two years living in a place with nothing to eat, like england.

i managed to eat some real (read: salty) food today, but even that was restricted to pizza and macaroni cheese. i covered a few spinach leaves with some bleu cheese dressing and tried to force them down, but between the dressing's foot taste and the fiber in the spinach, my body rejected it and spit it back out on the plate.

i do think it's okay to eat like this once in a while; we all need a cheat day, after all. but i learned my lesson today and tomorrow, i'm waking up at the crack of noon, putting on my running shoes, walking to my car and heading for the taco bell drive-thru.

it definitely takes discipline not to eat a sac of cookies and three ice creams seven days a week, but this is health we're talking about and i take mine seriously.