In December I wrote about CookieMonsteritis, and Ring-a-ding-a-phobia. Here are a two more little understood food related conditions that will never benefit from a telethon.
Telltale Shirtitis:
Stains on the front of shirts from your meals. Caused by piling too much food on the fork or spoon (or shovel) and shoving food onto the face before the previous bite is swallowed. Also caused by fatty rolls between the neck and natural waist. the more rolls, the more levels the food can hit as gravity drops it down the shirt. Normal weight people drop a morsel of food on to their laps. Morbidly obese people do not have laps.
When I was obese and practically inhaling my food, most of my shirts had food stains. I wore scarves to hide the stains when I went out; but really, how often did I go out, except to the food store.
Dimension-dementia:
Failure to recognize the quantity of food going into your body because you are at a buffet and having one plate and going back for another, and then another. With a clean plate in hand it is easy to forget you already ate scallops, prime rib and potatoes Au gratin. It seems perfectly natural to fill the empty plate up with chicken parmigiana, lasagna, ham, salami and cheese . . . and when that plate is gone and the patient has a few minutes to breathe and down a large diet soda, it will be time for everything that did not fit on the first two plates. Then it will be time for dessert. At the end of the meal the sufferer of Dimension-dementia has no idea why the thought of food is making them sick or why they need to open the button at the top of their pants. On the way out the door of the establishment, they grab a chocolate mint to go. . .
Only the obese and the formerly obese can appreciate the truth of these syndromes. For us, they are very real. I can laugh at them now without crying but it has taken a long time to be where I appreciate the humor I can make from the experience. If you cannot yet laugh at it today I hope you know that the only reason I can laugh now if because I felt the pain of living it then. Now I feel the joy of release from the misery. It is good to be free.
Jane~
8 comments:
That plate of food looks gross. I also lived through the days of eating like that. How sick I was. It is great to be free but we don't have the license to eat as we please, ever. Eating isn't a sport anymore. Thank God.
I also used to have a skewed perspective on how much I was eating, until I actually kept track of the calories online a couple of years ago. No wonder I was gaining weight.
While I am no longer morbidly obese and I eat sanely (one reasonably small bite at a time), I still seem to spill stuff on my shirt. I think I have a hole in my lip.
I agree with Myra, that plate of food looks absolutely gross to me. And that's a welcome change of heart!
I am the queen of spills. Sigh. :)
Gerri,
Do you like to talk while you're eating? I am a chatterbox so I can identify with the hole in lip thing.
I still spill on my chest. But the other night when we went to one of our usual places to eat out we chose our normal booth and I was thrilled to see that my boobs were not plopped on the table as usual (it is tight in the booth). But I was able to scoot in and had a few inches to spare, boobs hanging midair.
Hm. That sounded better in my head.
I still like a big plate of food. That desire is a hard one to break.
My husband and his brother mock my big salad.
Hey, boobs in the air is good anyway you put it! Mine hide under the table. Don't let anyone mock your big salad! If you enjoy it and it keeps you out of the big sizes then you keep your salad.
You are so right. That big plate of food actually looks disgusting. I was never morbidly obese, but for years I carried around 40 excess pounds on a a five foot tall body. Once I started writing down everything I ate or drank, I finally realized just how much I was eating.
When I go to a restaurant with a buffet now, I want to scream "stop" when I see someone with an overloaded plate, but I keep my mouth shut. The best part about keeping your mouth shut is that you can't put food in it. It also keeps you from getting dirty looks.
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