Desetralize food
"I was doing paleo a couple of years back" - Mila seemed a bit anxious, but somehow her remark landed flatly.
Her beautiful bouncy hair tied in a neat bun made me think of women from the 90's sitcoms. Always bubbly, a little bit sarcastic, with fun and colourful makeup and friends with pigtails... On the second thought, perhaps I am thinking of tween dramas.
"Ah, how was it? I've heard a lot about it, I think it was the thing to do a while back!" I am genuinely interested, it feels like something is lighting up inside of me. I love talking about different eating patterns, I like learning more about carbs and proteins and fats and glycemic index.
Hunting for the gooey shirataki noodles in various asian stores, comparing the content of the soft protein cookies in the store isle, googling ingredients in the empty grocery store isle, enjoying the click-click-clicky noises of my nails hitting the touchscreen. What a rush!
It would be very easy to write this obsession as an eating disorder, but that would be almost too trivial. It feels sometimes like the body obsession is just the excuse to go over different eating habits and food in my mind.
Mila bonded over the dejected interest in eating. Her, wanting to lose weight. Me, slightly less so. The idea of weightloss used to sound so inviting and bright, like the wonderful future was ahead of me if I could only lose some weight... Now, the future is here, the life I am living is everything I've ever wanted without even realizing that I wanted it, but the food fascination never stopped. I have weeks when I eat vegan or vegetarian, I tried eating raw vegan for a day (ended up throwing up, honestly it must've been a coincidence, but the desire to continue on that eating plan has evaporated), there was also a "milk diet" where one eats nothing but dairy, another one where one must only drink (juice, tea, and the British cup-a-coup). Somewhere deep inside, I revel in this, endlessly fascinated with the different eating routines.
On the outside though, I am tired.
I would like to wake up not thinking of what I'll have today, not thinking of calories or protein. I would like to neither overeat nor undereat. I would like to not plan out my meals in advance, not look up the menu of the restaurant beforehand, not think of food. I would like to decentralize it. I would like to be less obsessive about it, bored even.