I’m going to start this post with a jokes:
How many slices of pizza can you eat from a box while driving from Point A to Point B? The answer: all of them.

(OK, I was never good at telling jokes…)

I know I’ve talked about this before, but I have binging tendencies. It’s something that randomly happens and when it does, I have little control over it. Tonight, it was pizza. And not good pizza, I mean generic, fast food, could be cardboard, pizza. (I won’t mention where it came from, but I will say that roman emperors shouldn’t make their own pizza…pizza.)

Now on any given night, this would be a part of my diet. In fact, I was set to have a pretty awesome day food-wise. However, some nights just don’t go as planned. Tonight, I worked at an event at a residence hall on campus. I was going to a healthy dinner when I got home. When I got there, I saw that there were skyscrapers of pizza boxes stacked ready for consumption. “That pizza doesn’t sound appealing at all,” I thought to myself. Towards the middle of the event, the pizza started to sound more appetizing. “I might eat just a slice if they offer it to me. I have the points…” I said in my head, in a bargaining fashion.

Nice student: “Would you like some pizza?”
Me: “Sure.”
Brain: “WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU? THAT ROMAN EMPEROR MAKES TERRIBLE PIZZA…PIZZA!”
Tastebuds: “We love that crappy pizza. It’s been a while since we’ve had that disgusting deliciousness.”

So…I had two slices of the pizza and I thought that was it. But before I left, I got greedy. I asked for just a slice to go.

Different Nice Student: “Why don’t you take a box home with you!”
Me: “That’s OK. I just want a slice.”
Different Nice Student: “This pizza is delicious as leftovers!!!”
Me: “Yeah…I think I’m good.”
Different Nice Student: “Well here. Just take this box with four slices home!”
Me: “Well…OK sure. Thanks!”

I intentionally left the box in the backseat to avoid any extra eating, but that was until I was at a stop light. I put the car in park and reached around for the box. Then, I binged on all the pizza. It was like my brain shut down except to drive. I really do hate that pizza. We were forced to eat every Friday at the high school I went to my freshman year. But there was a small flavor that my tastebuds just went crazy over so I kept eating.

I’m posting this because I need to document it when it happens in as much detail for myself, but also to shed some light on a topic that doesn’t get talked about.

Now I know I am completely responsible for my own actions and body, but I think we all need to work on being OK when others don’t accept our food. For some people, self control is an incredibly hard thing to deal with and when we are offered a potential trigger food, we’ll eat it no matter what. I didn’t want to look rude to those nice students so I took their food. It’s safe to say that in the US, the cultural norm is to accept the food you’re offered and if you don’t, you’re a jerk or you don’t think the food being offered is acceptable. When a sweet grandmother-like figure offers you a cookie, you eat it because you don’t want to see the sad look on her face when you reject her cookie that actually represents a piece of her soul. (I know this all sounds like a bit of a stretch, but you get what I’m saying.) What I’m trying to say is let our no’s be no’s. For some of us, we can’t help ourselves and we don’t have the control to stop eating even if it hurts. I just want us as a society to reduce the currency we put on food. If I come to your house and don’t eat your block of fried chocolate and cheese, it’s not a reflection on your hosting skills, it’s just something I can’t eat.

Thankfully, unlike a lot of bloggers that I know, binging is a random occurrence for me now. I still have childhood memories of eating seven or eight hot dogs or five plates of spaghetti because I couldn’t stop myself. Some part of my body felt good when I was eating, so I kept going. After all this time, it is the biggest issue I have to face. It’s not something you are ever completely cured of, but it’s something I am working on trying to control. If you have had experiences with it and have any suggestions, I would gladly take them. But for now, I’ll just keep going.