My recent food related experiments

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 Back in September of last year I resolved to change how I think about food, as an experiment.


I have always strugged with my weight in my life, and have had many plus/minus 20 kg fluctuations.


My most recent set of weight problems in decending severity:

  • I have a non-alcoholic fatty liver.
  • I have a bit of IBS..
  • I began to snore to the point where my wife would give me a jolt in the early hours to be able to sleep. I'd wake up confused feeling my sleep hadn't been as good.
  • Gen X are horrendous to each other for this and I feel Gen Z solved it in the way they solved many things, but as a millenial my sense of self worth is still coupled to some extent to my waistline. Thankfully I almost eliminated this, and will come up again later in this post.
  • I live slightly farther away from a swimming pool and started going less, yet this remains the only excercise I like to do.


So I opted to listen to information I had dismissed before that food is more important than excercise in determining weight.


I was going to challenge eating habits and rules and rituals I have around eating and see what happpens.

I was not allowed to check the scales very often. If I did and the number was disappointing, I was allowed to have that feeling but not react to it. The opposed was true for a good outcome, I was allowed to quietly internally celebrate but not react really. The only thing that mattered was a downward trend of any magnitude, checking only now and again.

One of my objectives was sustainability. This won't work if it's exhausting. It won't work if I can't passively practise this. It is a huge cognitive burden working out dinner as it is, (and workng it out with other minds and bodies involved). I can't get into my head being critical about myself if I fail. I need to prioritise what is important (a healthy feelng and not an image) and stop allowing shame to enter. If I'm sick or on holiday, or it is not in my control, don't hold myself to account for setbacks.


So three main strategies emerged:

  1. Undo magical thinking about what happens if I don't finish what's on my plate, or what's on my partner's plate.
  2. Think about the concept of a single serving or portion - really think about it.
  3. Do not diet.


My dad used to tell me that every wasted grain of rice takes you closer to Hellfire. This is an intense way of saying you must eat what's on your plate. I am a religious man and reject a lot of things about that. I understand the moral imperatives about alms giving and socialism, how much we have failed livestock and should respect animals. It turns out that finishing your plate of food is not helping against any of that and at the same time destroying the body. I now stop when I feel like stopping. I now set aside food that is unfinsihed and refridgerate it, kicking the can of whether I have wasted food farther down the road, only to discover that no, I have become hungry and eaten it later and I didn't need to worry about it.

I started measuring out portions, like I do for cat food but instead do it for me, why do I deserve special treatment! I found there's a satisfying surprising bounty comes from it - the cupboards stay fuller for longer. The parable of Jesus feeding thousands of people from a modest amount of food entered my mind often. I found that after finishing a serving (45 g for granola, see the back of the pack, something like 30 g for crisps, and so on) if I was still hungry, I could go back for another serving of something else, or examine the 'hungry' feeling and determine how honest it is.

I do not believe in being sold the cure by Industrialists. I don't believe in ads (if conscious). I don't believe in quick fixes. I shouldn't need to control what is in the cupboard to succeed. I don't want to act fearfully. So I chose not to look at dieting advice.


My experiment's been positive for me. I don't feel any different when consuming food. I feel totally different in other ways. My body responded by asking for less and needing less (a physical reality about how brown fat works). There's a small mental load about controlling portion sizes, putting food away for later, knowing when to stop eating. I'm surprised how well I feel.


Funnily enough, I still feel 'fat' at times of stress or anxiety, despite all contraditing evidence. That tells me there's something which is still wrong in my beliefs. But that is a different follow-up project.


I'm fortunate my body responded this way and that I could conduct this experiment because I felt mentally well enough to do it. So am mentioning that here.

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