I HAVE NOW LOST 100 POUNDS

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

It started around Thanksgiving 2019.

We went out to an upscale seafood holiday buffet at a waterfront restaurant.

Overweight almost all my life (well, since 3^rd grade, but that’s almost a half century ago), I went hog wild.

Oh, the grilled finfish and chilled shellfish might have actually been decent choices.

But somewhere along the way -- gumbo with rice, starchy side dishes, breaded crab cakes, fried fish, sauces, butters, sodas and too many dessert bar trips to count – I did what I always do: eat like a starving man.

And when we got home, I didn’t even feel bad.

This became such a routine, that I didn’t feel like I had a half dozen portions of full meals – in one body.

I think just about every one of us loves food.

We crave fat and sugar.

Back when there wasn’t a drive-through on every corner and a snack count at every convenience store and gas station, we had to work all day for a meal – so if we gobbled down a bit much, it was burned off.

For me, food has a magical quality.

I fell under its spell like a person with substance abuse issues chases the high from heroin, meth or hard liquor.

Have a miserable day. Boss tore into your over nothing? Parents 1,000 miles away not speaking to your over a trivial issue? Treated your spouse poorly and raking yourself over the coals trying to figure out not only how to apologize, but also how to stop yourself from repeating bad behavior?

Eat a half a giant pizza, down a whole bag of chips, eat a third of a pie, down 6 pieces of fried fish drowned in tartar and accompanied with a mountain of French fries.

But food also was a way of patting myself on the back, of making sure the warm feeling of success felt like a zillion calories inside an ever-expanding tummy.

So a family sized serving of whipped potatoes in butter, a half a box of gourmet chocolate, a PBJ on artisanal bread with Jif and high fructose jelly spread thick as an inch – those were the way to do a victory lap, to celebrate the front page story, the closed deal with a creative client, the first day in Europe on vacation with my wife.

While I had to (or should have learned to) own this behavior for a third of a century of being an adult – I did not.

It took me decades and decades to realize that even if I didn’t care about my appearance “because hell, I was not male model or movie star,” that I was risking my health.

(more on my healthy lifestyle journey next blog post – February 28)