I have an interesting relationship with food, with eating. It's not hidden that I was once much bigger. Much much bigger. No, I won't post the photos from those days, nor will I tell you how much I weighed then. Imagine me now with a Soviet Bloc gymnast or figure skater added to my body and that will give you an idea of it. So I approach food both hungrily and greedily as well as cautiously. Ever wonder why I bake so much yet share it outwardly with friends and others? To satisfy the urge to cook, to be with the food and yet maintain a reasonable weight. The deal I've had to make with myself.
That sounds alarming, as if I don't eat. Readers of this blog over the years will know that oh yes, I eat and relish in it. When I lived in my hometown years ago, though, and went from a fat guy just out of undergrad to my mid-twenties and many pounds lighter, I would get occasional inquiries.
Are you sick?
Are you eating?
The implications were clear, or what I read into them was clear to me. No, I had no wasting disease of any sort. Yes, I was eating. Eating disorders were not my route to losing weight (much as Ruth, bless her, frets over my nutrition bar lunches - that's not starving myself, that's expediency).
But it does require vigilance. And I'll tell you this - and ask you to indulge and even forgive me: once fat, always fat. You never lose that mindset, that mental image.
Is it irony or cosmic black humour that I spent several years cooking professionally, that I currently review cookbooks and bake scones for teammates and dine at some of Chicago's finest restaurants with Conrad?
Ah well. As I said, a reflective mood tonight. I genuinely feel good about myself, and while I've been eating lazily (not poorly) while Conrad is out of town for work, I still can muster up a half-decent plate of food from time to time. Salmon last weekend when Frank came to dinner.
The wheels in my head are spinning planning a dinner of ribs for Brian and Daniel this weekend. My peculiar relationship to cooking and eating lives on, and maybe, just maybe, it's working for me.
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2 comments:
Peter - I have the same sort of background. I don't know how heavy you were, but 10 to 12 years ago I was about 70 pounds heavier than I am now. Your post really resonated with me!
I often get questions like "Really? There's no way you eat." "Have you been to the doctor to be tested?" Or, my favorite, "How come you don't weigh 300 pounds?"
Joe, I still get occasional questions, too. It was also a bit disconcerting to go back to my hometown three years ago for my 20th high school reunion and have a few people (who had seen me since I had lost most or all of the excess weight) express surprise that I wasn't heavy any more.
But thank you for sharing in return. My own weight loss was in the neighbourhood of yours, so I think you very much understand.
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