Unbelievable. I’m… I’m trying so hard to not rant about something. My mom is… no forget it. I’ll save that catastrophic headache for another post because I’m trying to stay in a good mood today. I’ll follow up on a Health and Fitness post I wrote instead.
So the wee… wait, I can’t concentrate with my mom on the goddamned phone. Okay, finally. So the weekend chicken and rice thing really shocked the hell out of me. It seems funny to say this when I’ve eaten entire pizza pies in one sitting, but the fact that I could eat 10 pounds of food in one weekend was just mind blowing to me. So how does this happen? Where does it start?
As a kid, I was forced to go to church every Sunday with my mom and older siblings. Except for the girls and the chance to get out of the house, I really never liked church. After service, my mom would give us money to buy Chinese food. My order was always the same: chicken fried rice with boneless chicken, French fries, hot sauce and ketchup on the chicken and fries, and an egg roll. We’d go home and I’d get ready to watch sports, whether it was basketball or football. The best was the NBA on NBC. Knicks vs. Heat. Lakers vs Celtics. Michael Jordan vs. ANYBODY. I would wait until the game started and, once I heard that now famous NBA on NBC theme, it was time to eat. I’d shovel everything in my mouth and eat everything. There were times when I was full, yet I continued to eat. I was so distracted from my body and focused on the TV that I simply didn’t realize it until the game was over that I ate a ton of food. And that, I’m theorizing, is why I’m able to eat 10 pounds of food in one weekend.
I equate entertainment with food. It’s like going to a movie theater and getting the popcorn. It never feels right eating when the lights are on, you know? But once the lights go dark and the movie starts, it’s like a green light that says, “Okay, start eating!” So when I’m at the shipping depot and start watching a movie or TV show, I forget when I’m full and continue to eat. It’s only when I’m not being entertained that I can pay attention to myself and realize that I don’t need to eat so much. Rather than explain the theory further, let me give the results of an experiment that I conducted. One of the ways I justify my large consumption of food is to say something like, “I need to make a lot of food because I have to work two 12 hour shifts on the weekend. Eventually I’m gonna get hungry and the rice and chicken won’t be enough.” But is this true?
With each weekend that comes and goes, I will not bring any extra food. The chicken and rice should be more than enough, as I’ve already proven that the hunger I feel after eating the food is all in my head. As time goes on, I would like to reduce the amount of food I eat during the weekends, eventually eating only 5 pounds of food for the entire two days. This weekend, for example, I will only make 4 pieces of chicken instead of eight. 10 pounds of food is just gross, and now I know why I always feel like crap on Monday mornings. Ugh. Slowly but surely I’ll learn. It just takes time.
So the wee… wait, I can’t concentrate with my mom on the goddamned phone. Okay, finally. So the weekend chicken and rice thing really shocked the hell out of me. It seems funny to say this when I’ve eaten entire pizza pies in one sitting, but the fact that I could eat 10 pounds of food in one weekend was just mind blowing to me. So how does this happen? Where does it start?
As a kid, I was forced to go to church every Sunday with my mom and older siblings. Except for the girls and the chance to get out of the house, I really never liked church. After service, my mom would give us money to buy Chinese food. My order was always the same: chicken fried rice with boneless chicken, French fries, hot sauce and ketchup on the chicken and fries, and an egg roll. We’d go home and I’d get ready to watch sports, whether it was basketball or football. The best was the NBA on NBC. Knicks vs. Heat. Lakers vs Celtics. Michael Jordan vs. ANYBODY. I would wait until the game started and, once I heard that now famous NBA on NBC theme, it was time to eat. I’d shovel everything in my mouth and eat everything. There were times when I was full, yet I continued to eat. I was so distracted from my body and focused on the TV that I simply didn’t realize it until the game was over that I ate a ton of food. And that, I’m theorizing, is why I’m able to eat 10 pounds of food in one weekend.
I equate entertainment with food. It’s like going to a movie theater and getting the popcorn. It never feels right eating when the lights are on, you know? But once the lights go dark and the movie starts, it’s like a green light that says, “Okay, start eating!” So when I’m at the shipping depot and start watching a movie or TV show, I forget when I’m full and continue to eat. It’s only when I’m not being entertained that I can pay attention to myself and realize that I don’t need to eat so much. Rather than explain the theory further, let me give the results of an experiment that I conducted. One of the ways I justify my large consumption of food is to say something like, “I need to make a lot of food because I have to work two 12 hour shifts on the weekend. Eventually I’m gonna get hungry and the rice and chicken won’t be enough.” But is this true?
- Three weekends ago, I brought my regular rice and chicken to the shipping depot, along with organic tortilla chips. I ate the entire rice and chicken in one sitting, and felt hungry by 6pm. So I ate the entire bag (about a pound) of chips. Every time an episode of Battlestar Galactica started or a new movie began, I felt like eating.
- Two weekends ago, I brought my rice and chicken, but this time without the chips. I ate half of the rice at the beginning of the shift, and the rest at 9pm. In between eating times, I focused more on the amount of food that I ate rather than what I was watching. This was a huge difference. By focusing on the fact that I had already eaten 2.5 pounds of food, that hungry feeling didn’t make sense and I was able to see it for what it really was..
- Last weekend, I brought the rice and chicken with the chips. My hope was that I would be strong enough to eat the rice and chicken, while resisting the chips. Unfortunately I failed, devouring those chips at the start of “The Overnighters”. It sucked that I couldn’t resist the temptation, but at least I have identified the problem. And I actually had to force myself to eat the remaining half at 9pm because I was kinda full.That's right. 2.5 pounds of food can actually fill me up for the entire 12 hour shift. Who would have thought?!
With each weekend that comes and goes, I will not bring any extra food. The chicken and rice should be more than enough, as I’ve already proven that the hunger I feel after eating the food is all in my head. As time goes on, I would like to reduce the amount of food I eat during the weekends, eventually eating only 5 pounds of food for the entire two days. This weekend, for example, I will only make 4 pieces of chicken instead of eight. 10 pounds of food is just gross, and now I know why I always feel like crap on Monday mornings. Ugh. Slowly but surely I’ll learn. It just takes time.
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