A Cheese Sneaker Divorces a Friend

I have been obsessed with this British show called “Sneaky Eaters” recently. It focuses on people who believe that they are eating healthily but are actually consuming thousands of calories over their limit each day. This can be due to many things:

• sneaking treats and hiding them from families/spouses/selves

• Grazing on snacks throughout the day

• Restricting food and then rewarding self with bingeing

• Using high calorie oils/ dressings/ trimmings/ etc.

• simply not understanding how food works and not believing that their diet is to blame for extra pounds (I am just unlucky/ my metabolism is slow/ my bones are big)

Here is a snippet of an episode (the one where Mr. invents a "pie sandwich"):

https://youtu.be/6A13g1gdhts

One of the reasons I love this show is that I think hiding treats from people in your house is deeply funny and so, so human. Who hasn’t done that? I feel like at some point we’ve all hidden the good cereal or snacks from our siblings or spouse, or eaten something in the car to avoid the judgemental eye of our family or the pressure to share. I know when I was little, especially, I made a sport of this. The first thing I would do when mom got home from the supermarket was hide the sugar cereal from my brother.

One of the other reasons I love this show is because I was definitely a Sneaky Eater. In addition to hiding the good stuff, I vividly remember sneaking cheese. I love cheese. All cheese. I could easily finish a block once delicious slice at a time. And when I was a kid that was often my goal. First I would hide the block in the back of the drawer so my rapid pace of consumption was less obvious. Then I would slice 5-6 pieces and run up to my room. I would read while savoring each slice. After I had finished those slices, I would plan my next attack and sneak downstairs and do it again. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t deprived. But I knew that, if caught, I would be reasonably told to Eat Less Cheese. And that would have really ruined my desired level of Cheese Fun.

But let’s think about that for a moment and what it illustrates: an early compulsion to eat and hoard food. And an early connection forged between eating, fun, excess and secrecy. A connection that has been strengthened with every sneaky success. This was the birthplace of my Inner Compulsive Eater. I've taken to calling her Betty over the years. I imagine her as kind of a pushy know-it-all now. Someone who would eat off your plate without asking and get self-righteous if you challenged them. Someone it is easier to give in to than to fight.

Betty really got the better of me, though, when I was living alone. There was no judgement to incur from anyone at any time. I could order $30 worth of Taco Bell at 12:30am and then pretend it never happened (we all deserve a "treat" now and then, as Betty would say). After a binge meal I would feel some guilt, but then soon I’d be bored again and the anticipation would be back, and I would start planning my next meal. There IS a level of self-awareness that developed in that I WAS at least cognizant of when I was about to binge. "It's okay," Betty would say soothingly. "You've had a really busy week."

While I have clearly wavered in my willingness to fight Betty and limit my food intake over the years, I have never wavered in my belief that my weight was a problem, and have continuously used the same apps to track it. As such, I do have a great wealth of data at my disposal that I can use to analyze myself objectively. This chart below shows my weight over the past 11 years:

No matter how you frame or slice this, the story the data tells is clear: Betty doesn't know what the eff she is talking about and this person has a problem. And what they have been doing does NOT work.

This is all very unfortunate since the dips here demonstrate more or less healthy attempts to lose weight. I’ve never subscribed to crash diets, pills, or medical procedures— all of my attempts have been calorie counting and exercise in various forms. But over and over the pattern is the same: I lose some weight (sometimes a significant amount) and then I gain it all back and more. Sometimes a lot more. And now, when the stakes are so much higher, I find myself feeling afraid of the implications of these data and bracing myself for another failed attempt, especially since I still I find myself wanting to cheat. To sneak. To hoard. Yesterday I really wanted to not have to make the same dinner (again) and to eat a favorite take-out sandwich instead. I was close to caving. But then I did something I never do when I am in a binge cycle: I looked up the calories. And there it was.

My favorite sandwich (the one I have ordered countless times and would have ordered yesterday) is 1600 calories. 1600!!

That’s 800 calories more than I had thought. I had never looked it up before. I spent part of the afternoon doing a deep dive into my old habits, looking up calories in what I have been eating mindlessly over the past couple years. I found that on a good day I was coming in around 3,000 calories (1000 more than I need), and on a bad day I was consuming as much as 5,000. FIVE THOUSAND.

All of a sudden that line graph makes a lot of sense. This realization is the exact goal of “Sneaky Eaters”— to show people what they are really putting in their bodies. Make them own it and reckon with it.

I then disappointed myself by letting Betty pose a totally predictable question: “What so you're never going to have that sandwich or pizza again? Ever?”

And the answer is that it doesn’t matter, Betty. I’m not going to have pizza TODAY because I'm, 245 pounds and prediabetic. As long as that is true, I can’t be worried about pizza. That’s a problem for another day. And on that day, when I have to plan out how I am going to MAINTAIN a healthy weight (not just reach it), I might have to reckon with that question and face some tough decisions about how I want to move forward in my life.

But today is not that day.

Today, I am working hard on following my weight loss plan, and rewiring the reward center in my brain. I am fighting Betty by creating meaningful recreation time that excludes her and drowns her stupid voice out allowing me to focus on meeting my goals. One day at a time.