When food becomes fuel instead of fun

I have a confession to make. For the first time in several years – at least five and maybe more – I weigh less than 200 pounds.  OK, so it’s only 199, but hey, one step at a time, right?

I started gaining weight about the same time I decided to make and consume at least one root beer float with chocolate ice cream virtually every day of my life. And I didn’t just put in two scoops of ice cream and cover it with a little root beer. I half-filled the biggest glass I could find with the soda and crammed in as much ice cream as I could fit, then ate a little bit off the top and crammed in some more. Then I added more root beer and more ice cream.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I also liked to eat peanut butter on Chips Ahoy cookies late at night and wash it down with one or two glasses of milk. I have been known to eat not one, but three, Krispy Kreme chocolate covered cream-filled donuts at a time. You get the idea.

That was bad enough, but three-and-a-half years ago, I quit smoking and turned into an eating machine. I started living on hot dogs from Woody’s, steak hoagies from the Derby and pizza from Cantoni’s and Colasessanos. Late at night, I’ve been known to drive over to McDonalds for two double cheeseburgers and a basket of fries. And don’t even get me started on chocolate milk shakes or Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Nuggets.

(I’m so ashamed.)

The point is, I love to eat. I love to eat stuff that’s not good for me and I love to eat it in great quantities at all hours of the day and night. You can therefore imagine the shock to my system when I started Weight Watchers in January after the guy who was so skinny he used to buy his blue jeans in the boys department tipped the scale at 227.5 pounds. (I weighed roughly 145 when I started college.)  I looked in the mirror on my way to the shower and saw Jabba the Hutt looking back at me.

So now I weigh 199, at least for one day, and I’m no longer eating for enjoyment. Today I consume food as fuel to keep me alive, and nothing more. Coffee for breakfast, eggs and plain toast for lunch, baked chicken tenders, applesauce and vegetables for dinner and, if I’m good, a 4-point Fiber One brownie for dessert.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

This is what happens when you get old, your metabolism slows down and your body won’t allow you to exercise enough to keep off the weight from all that junk food you like to eat. Now I lie in bed at night watching TV with my stomach growling while commercials for the Super Baconater, the XXL Grilled Stuft Burrito, the Quarter-Pound Thickburger and the Bourbon BBQ Triple Stack sandwich pass in front of my eyes.

My stomach might be screaming “want, need” but my brain keeps saying “don’t you dare.”

It’s no surprise to me that the World Health Organization ranks the United States as one of the most obese nations on the planet. When you kick out tiny third-world nations like Tonga, Tokelau, Samoa, Palau, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, the U.S. easily makes the Top 5. (For the record, countries at the thinner end of the scale include Japan, China, Switzerland, France, Denmark and Sweden.) The U.S. is first among the world’s largest trading economies.

According to Wikipedia, obesity contributes to approximately 100,000 to 400,000 deaths in the United States per year and health care costs of around $117 billion when you include preventive and diagnostic care, treatment services related to weight and indirect costs such as absenteeism and premature death. One report says this exceeds health care costs associated with smoking and accounts for 6% to 12% of all national health care expenditures in the United States.

So there’s that. As far as I’m concerned, eating smaller quantities of better food at more appropriate times of the day is simply the right thing to do. When I finally got the will to give up cigarettes after 50 years, I simply told myself I could do it…and I did. I had the same conversation with myself about my weight.

As for the “food is only fuel” theory, I intend to see how far this takes me before I eventually hit a wall and stop losing weight altogether. I’ll decide what to do when that time comes, but here is one thing I know for sure: If I am ever diagnosed with a fatal, incurable disease and given a few weeks to live, I’m heading straight to Woody’s for lunch and the Derby for dinner, ordering a pizza to snack on and building the largest root beer float ever created by man.

I mean, at that point, what else would I have to lose?