‘I’m Saying Grace‘ - Improving my Diet - Part 5.

I was reading this article about Biblical views on gluttony. It explains gluttony as overindulging in ‘the pleasure that food and drink give to a person’. The root of my food ‘addiction’, whatever it may be, is broadly encapsulated in this definition.

Nietzsche said ‘he who has a why to live can bear almost any how.’

God is my why.

How hard is it to quit a habit?

As hard as it is to believe.

You need to believe. You need a ‘why’. A moral philosophy.

Now, I see the way clearly. But clearly, to the extent I am continuing this habit, my belief is weak.

Over the course of the wednesday, I engorged myself on soda and chocolate, to the point that I brought myself to the verge of vomiting. Then I waited until the feeling just about went away. Then I consumed more. This is a state familiar to me. It was a reminder that I have a serious problem. This could take years off my life unremedied. It doesn’t help that I’m trying to make this transformation… and I’ve been doing a lot of lounging about. My graduation ceremony is in a day’s time. The sudden inertia of being finished with uni is probably why I’m so active on this blog all of a sudden. But unanchored in other aspects of life: I have a whole lot of commitments coming up (a weekend away here, a charity event there). Case in point, it’s not the oppertune time to look for work. So until I can build a routine around work, I need to rely on spiritual guidance and routine-driven, hobbies and habits to replace the bad ones.

When I wanted to quit nicotine, I remember seeing a document derived from the Alan Carr method (similar to this). It included a dictate ‘swear a solemn vow’ to never smoke again. I promised God not to vape again and it symbolised the end of that problem for me. I did vape again on two occasions. I will pay the eternal consequence for these breaches, but fundamentally the vow was the death knell of my addiction.

I can’t swear off of bad food. I need to eat, and every single item of food is good and bad in gradations. But I can swear to try- we all know a better and a worse food choice when we see one.

According to Dr. Mike Israetel, ‘there’s not any magical way in which unhealthy food makes you fatter than healthy food […] if you can smash a lot of healthy calories in, you’re still gaining weight’.

I don’t care about my weight. I’ve made that pretty plain. I like being a bit puffy and filling out my clothes. And I like my skinnier phases too. Weight to me is something I’m indifferent about. I’m only mildly overweight- BMI of 26.1. Having said that, Dr. Mike’s musings illustrate the fallacious nature of labelling foods as all good or all bad; they will impact you in many similar ways. Obviously, foods with a high glycemic value will increase your risk of metabolic issues… yada, yada. But it isn’t cut and dry. Israetel follows up by clarifying that ‘minimally-processed food that tends to be healthier […] you’re just probably not gonna overeat them.’

I can derive from that a scale of sorts for assessing the ‘healthiness’ of foods- The degree of processing, as a marker which tends to inversely-correlate with nutritional value.

I was doing some research on Israetel. I saw this article about how he ‘eats, sleeps and breathes fitness’. Later on this evening, I wondered if that could be me.

I tend to think things through by imagining myself conversing with people I used to know and talking them around. It’s kinda lame, but I seem to do it automatically, so I’m stuck with it. I was having a conversation with the phantasy of at least two old teachers. In this future phantasy, one of them is commending me for my healthy eating. I respond by telling them about my former binge eating days (which is the present) and how I made the choice to be as healthy as possible to escape from that. ‘I even refused my grandfather’s birthday cake!’ - This kind of thing.

And then I realised it probably does have to be like that. By God. I have a serious issue here. I mean, you could eat the birthday cake because it’s symbolic. But that’s really where the buck has to stop. The rest of the time, I could be as good as gold with my diet. It would be an experience. How healthy can I be? How will it make me feel? I’ve never actually tried that long-term.

So here’s the deal man. I will swear a solemn vow to God that I will make the healthiest choices I can (seeing as I have a metric for this - minimally-processed, intuitively-healthy stuff).

Likewise, we know it’s useful, in the persuit of these goals, to get good sleep and to limit your intake to 2-3 meal times. I have mentioned previously my reason for landing on 2 meals a day.

Let’s see if I can live up to the healthy fantasy.

I have previously mentioned my obsessive-compulsive roadblocks. I erect walls in my own head which limit my own progress. It’s mental chatter which sounds like this:

Did that person try to pressure you into losing weight? Well, that’s ruined it. This process is no longer yours. You need to eat crap food until next week then you can restart under your own terms.'

It’s wildly silly but I find it hard to shut that chatter off.

My graduation ceremony is tomorrow, and I have this weird hang-up about the fact this process is co-occuring with that. It draws the parallel in my head between the event and the dietary goals- I don’t want the two to be related. It feels like my hand being forced. It feels like if I succeed in kicking the habit this time, then it’s related to graduation. Which makes me feel disempowered and like an institution is taking the credit from me.

It’s crazy, but that’s my brain. Why not be honest about it? I can practice articulating the problem which can hopefully improve my quality of thinking about the problem.

I suppose religion spurred me out of this mental prison a bit. This was ‘a mind forg’d manacle’ - to quote Shakespeare - which used to paralyse me into inaction. Articulating my own values, which precursed the rejuvination of my religiousness, helped me escape that obsessive-compulsive prison. If I succeed today, or the next day, or next year- I believe my creator knows all about it. I’m sure God would expect me to cast off such neurotic concerns and just deal with the problem.

The Allen Carr method tells you to smoke your last cigarette before your vow.

I’ve got a co-op bag here full of chocolate and sodas. I’m saying Grace.

I will tack on one thing. My graduation is tomorrow. Most likely, I would be in caffiene withdrawal if I didn’t allow myself just one more diet coke tomorrow morning. Otherwise I might be miserable on the special day. The symbolic ‘final binge’ that occured today is still completely important in my mind. Same as the vow. I think we could all agree that I have plenty of time to withdraw the day after the ceremony. Really and truly, let’s get this out of the way first.

Here’s my vow.

With this, O Lord, will my bad food habit cease. With this my bad soda habit likewise [except for tomorrow at graduation]. Guide me away from gluttony to enriched and nourishing choices. This is my vow. Amen.

Now to dust off this food, and drink; so provided by God.

Goodbye consumerist, overpriced nonsense.

Hello… a better way to be.

I often convince myself to not quit things because I want to know I can function well in spite of bad habits. This is another authoritarian, quasi-OCD trait of mine. I’ve had to let that shit go. I’ve had to accept I’m not that guy. I have to be strict with myself. I have to be the guy who expends effort to regulate himself. I’ve blown most of my money over and over on junk food. It’s on the cusp of being really bad. I can’t afford things.

I have to take accountability for this, I have to suffer for this, and then I have to step into a new way of being.

I will be the guy who eats the ‘broccoli and salmon’ over the ‘hamburger’, (Israetel again) and if people point it out, I will tell them about my situation. I will be humble. There is an ego-syntonic angle to this- I can extract pride from being the healthy guy. Many people would continue to bore deeper into this dark hole. I am getting out. Come hell or high water. It must be done.

Let’s see if I can be Mike Israetel.

‘You know Jed Denny, he ‘eats, sleeps, and breathes fitness […] nutrition, strength, and hypertrophy.’

Watch this space.

Sounds like a cooler state of affairs than force-feeding myself with giant chocolate bars and soda.

It has to be this way. This is my situation. Personally. I have to give myself exactly no rope. Because I (metaphorically) string myself a noose every time. I’m not going to be the next Bryan Johnson, but I can start small. I know that I could make a salad at home as opposed to defaulting to bingeing on shop-bought nonsense. So I have to actually make the salad.

It’s a vow now.

God is watching.

Thanks for reading,

Jed.