My Unhealthy Relationship with Food
I like to eat, I like to eat a lot, and it’s probably going to be the death of me.
It wasn’t a problem when I was younger. I was quite the athlete growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. After high school I rested on my laurels and didn’t notice any problems until the late ’90s. Of course back then you could get the appetite suppressing diet pills that actually worked. Once phenylpropanolamine was removed from stores in October of 2000, my weight really started to creep up.
Of course in 2005, I got a wild hair up my ass. I joined the military and that masked the problem rather well. My physical fitness regimen and compulsory healthier lifestyle transformed me into quite the Adonis. I managed to become a very muscular 190lbs, and that kept things in check for about 8 years.
Actually, the last two years of that were a bit of a struggle though. You see, 9 years ago I started experiencing a cavalcade of weird symptoms. It began with fatigue, regular spasms and cramps, constantly exhausted no matter how much rest I got. I’m not going to list all of it, because some of it was pretty gross. Suffice to say, it was hypothyroidism. More specifically, it was Hashimoto’s. My own immune system was trying to kill me, and it managed to ablate my thyroid.
Not only that, but enough time had passed from when it started to when they finally diagnosed it and started treatment, that there was extensive damage all over my body. That “healthy lifestyle” I used to practice wasn’t something I could tolerate anymore. Even to this day, there are significant issues with anything more than “light exercise”. Keep in mind that I continue to maintain a moderately active lifestyle working in manufacturing, so don’t think I’m just sitting on my ass all day.
No, the problem isn’t my activity level. It’s my insatiable appetite. It doesn’t help that I happen to be really good at cooking comfort food too. So unless somebody develops magical zero calorie replacements for chocolate, meat, dairy, starches, oils, grains, and sugars, I’ll probably be experiencing a massive coronary in the near future.
Pax,
-f2x
