You can read minds?

I seem to never be full. Should I eat a big restaurant dinner and feel stuffed, by the time I walk home, I am almost always cruising for a snack. My biggest weakness seems to be sweets. As a joke a group of grad students at UNLV did put the remainder of a chocolate cake in front of me, just to see if it was true that I never stop eating chocolate. After plowing through it, I went home for a snack, of chocolate.

Obviously, if I am ever to have abs like Gerard Butler's (which starred in the movie 300, with Gerard playing a supporting role), I must curb my insatiable sweet tooth. The simple solution is to eat less, but finding moderation is not easy for me (or anyone?). I was eating a lot of fruit, to healthfully satiate the sweet tooth, but 1.5 kilos of oranges/day left me lusting after chocolate. Since gluttony in one food does not seem to address the issue, I tried to quit overeating cold turkey. This, as any diet expert will tell you, leads to binge eating, or essentially, no change.

I go through cycles of these attempts. In general, the most successful diet for me is carrots (yes, back to the gluttony scheme). I have, in the name of controlling appetite, eaten up to 5 lbs of carrots a day. The average is about two pounds when I am powering through carrots. Even with eating more carrots than a horse can dream of, the abs do not come, but I do eat less other foods. As I write this I am looking at a demolished box of cookies, wishing it was a bag of carrots that I had just eaten as a “snack.”

My inability to curb my eating has given me a strange respect for anorexia. Yes, it is bad. Yes, it is an illness. Yes, yes, yes, but think of it in terms of will power! Imagine if you could apply that will power in a healthy, constructive way. We would all have Gerard Butler's abs! Not necessarily be a bad thing. The eating disorder I do not understand is bulimia.

I just ate a box of cookies. They were delicious, actually they weren't. They were pretty crappy cookies, and if logic played a role in this I would have just saved them for when my pantry is bare. The cookies will probably be a big part of my dinner, and if not, then they will be a big part of my waistline. Either way, I get my money's worth. If, I were bulimic, and purged them, I could guiltlessly eat a more delicious food item. But! I did not enjoy eating them, and I would probably not enjoy vomiting them. I would thus double my dissatisfaction with the cookies, and not be able to count them as usable calories. I would also have to pay money for the new item, which probably would not make up for the vomiting and bad cookies, and I might overeat that food too, and have to purge again. Bulimia just seems like flushing money down the toilet, which I would classify as not a “disorder,” but crazy.

To deal with my physical fitness, having ruled out bulimia (I am not that crazy), anorexia (not enough will power), overeating “healthy” foods, and moderation, my only option now seems gluttony in exercise, which I suppose I am all for. My holdup is now inertia. I have something of a routine. I get up, get ready for work, ride my bike to work, work, ride my bike home, eat dinner, read, write, then go to bed. I would like to add a swim in the morning, a run in the evening, and yoga before bed. It is totally doable. The swimming requires a wet suit, so it will probably be a run in the morning, and a ride in the evening, a long yoga practice, or a strength/calisthenics session. Regardless, spending more time exercising is reasonable, if I can change my routine to accommodate it.

Like building shiny new abs, getting into the new routine will take time, but it is a goal. It has been recommended that I should train for an event, maybe the Taupo Ironman, but I do not know if I need to enter a race just to motivate. However, if I ever do an event, it might as well be a tri-, and if I enter a tri- it might as well be an Ironman. After all, if I swim a couple of miles, then ride 100 miles, it seems the best way to address an insatiable hunger, would be to run a marathon.