weight » CoupleDumb

10,000 Calorie per Day Relationship

Nov 192009

Everything is good as a sandwich.

          Our relationship with food defines who we are. It is directly linked to our self esteem, our social life, and our health. Anyone who tries to pretend like it is just about eating is fibbing to you. Luckily, you have CoupleDumb to set you straight. So, grab a donut in each hand and enjoy your Thursday while we talk some more about food.

          Paul says: To understand my relationship with food, I need to tell you a little story. When I was a younger man in my late teens, my brother and I went on a weight gaining diet. I was rail thin at six feet tall and 128 pounds and my brother had an unhealthy body fat less than 5%. So, for six months I ate 10,000 calories per day. To eat that many calories required about a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon (I wasn’t worried about cholesterol), a protein shake, and then more food two hours later. Basically, I would eat constantly. At night I would go to bed bloated from my pre-slumber shake, hoping that I did not vomit in my sleep. My brother and I did this every day for six months and, at the end, I gained a whopping two pounds. Oh, my brother gained nothing.

          People hate this story. That they hate the story is ok. They like to tell me how much they hate that story and that is not ok. During my formative teen years, I despised the way I looked. When girls liked meaty coordinated boys, I had gangly and bony going at full throttle. At least that is what I thought girls liked. As I get older I realize the girls are just as clueless as boys but that insight was not granted to me until well after it was useful. So when I made myself sick in hopes that it would make me more attractive socially and sexually, I was greeted with a very verbal dislike. Please actually said the words, ‘I hate you’ to my face. These were friends that would say the words with a jocular cadence and ire in their eyes.

          That is what helped create my relationship with food. It mirrors the responses I got for my eating habits. I love food and I hate food. I will eat almost anything. I do not like salmon or coconut. Beyond that, everything is fair game. I can be a vegetarian because I love vegetables or I can be a strict carnivore because meat is yummy. Add garlic and everything is delicious. At a point in my life, I embraced that I was naturally thin and developed my most unhealthy eating habits. Once I figured out that I can eat whatever I wanted without the risk of weight gain, I did just that. A half sheet of cake for breakfast or gallons of ice cream before bed are just alright with me. Then I turned 40 and began gaining weight. Fuck you, genetics!

          So this whole story is my way of illustrating that food is a central relationship, not an ancillary one. Take a look at your relationship with food and you will see your relationship with almost everything else. I’m going to go make oatmeal now because I have a lifetime of habits to break. Fuck you, genetics!

          Lee says: As his partner for the last 22 years, I can tell you this is not the same man I married. Wait, he still eats the same but the physique is quite different. That’s not true. When we met, his food could not touch. There was a lot of it but his food was not allowed to co-mingle. My mother, and I’d like to think a little sex and loosening up, fixed all that up. Paul likes to think that he has always been this easy going guy but where food was concerned, he had a love/rigid relationship. He could eat anything but it was just so. Food was enjoyable and probably after the 10,000 calorie a day diet, it became a means to an end that genetics ultimately took care of 20 years later.

          A good example is when we were dating. We had gone on our first weekend getaway together (sharing a room- OMG!). I was a wreck. We met our great friend, Steve, in Palo Alto and drove to Berkeley for some sightseeing and dinner. While we ate our scrumptious Italian meal, I had the audacity to take a piece of my garlic bread and dip into my marinara (on my plate). Paul leaned over and Mr. Mild Mannered whispered, ‘What are you doing?’ I was surprised but answered, ‘I’m dipping my bread.’ He then looked at me and said ‘That’s disgusting!’ I was mortified. Of course, I had no idea that he was uptight about food.

          Now, I have to stop him from dipping anything and everything. Sure, occasionally I’ll give him the stink eye and say how disgusting that is. He doesn’t care. I’m like a food Pygmalion and he is my Galatea. O.K. , my Galatea is a little plumper and dips his bread into everything but he’s still mine.

I'm not fat, I'm just bloated

Reader's Questions

Feb 202009

Tyra - Chubby girl spokesmodel?

Susan asked: “Girls, body image, and (over)weight. Can you speak to that? (I am not talking about being skinny minnies, although that is certainly a serious problem as well.)”

Lee says: Our daughters are definitely not immune to the societal obsession with weight and looks. Our focus on the superficial has taken a turn from being health conscious to being perfect. As we know cognitively, perfection is impossible however emotionally we all strive for some sort of perfection. The physical perfection is trying to fit some sort of mold that was created by some warped individual. When we were growing up, the ideal was to 36, 24, 36. That was considered a “10”! Today, that woman would be a cow and told to get lipo, boobies and wear Spanx!

I’m a big girl. I have been all my life and, even though I have been releasing weight (I don’t use the word lose because it puts me in a scarcity spiral and makes me want to keep what I’m losing. Stop shaking your head, it works for me), I will always retain my Latina ass. It’s remarkable and keeps my husband quite happy. I understand the stigma that the extra weight places on our kids and it saddens me when a beautiful girl is overweight since I know the crap she will go through. People are cruel; there is no getting around that.

I know my weight issues are exacerbated by the fact that I use food to soothe me when stressed. I have worked on these issues in therapy throughout the years. A lot of my unhealthy eating behavior stems from inconsistent parents who would bitch if I didn’t eat and would freak if I did. There was no pleasing them so I ate secretly. These harmful habits have carried over into my adulthood and voila, chunky woman. I have become more conscious of my eating and really watch what I do, not to be skinny but to be healthy.

Moms and Dads are responsible for teaching their children that the inside is more important than the outside. We also should be teaching them to honor their bodies not only with the food they put into it but also who we allow to touch it and how. Most religions teach that our bodies are temples and are sacred. And yet we treat them like piñatas at 4 year olds birthday party; filled full of crap and ready for the whacking.

It should behoove every parent to be consistent and loving to their children. We should be modeling healthy behavior not only in eating but in lifestyle and the way we love and relate to others. They watch to see if you share your feelings and are willing to work on your issues in a healthy manner. Our kids look up to us, which is a horrifying thought. They will repeat our mistakes which include how we deal with stress. So put down the cookie dough and chocolate sauce and reach for the carrots and call your therapist when you’re stressed. If you’re like me, you want your kids to live a long and healthy life being happy with who they are and how they look. If that look has some extra junk in the trunk, then amen.

Paul says: I love my rubenesque wifey and her Latina ass. But, as I write this, I realize that that is the same stupid thinking, just with a higher lipid content. I wonder if, in some alternate universe where men like chubby women, females are gorging themselves for beauty and getting fat pumped into their hips.