Last time on my saga to eat well, we left off around the middle of my second year of uni. I had sporadic binges, which were bad enough when I was the one paying for food – at least my food intake was limited by my resources. But shit, on a visit to Hamburg, I gained like 2kg within a long weekend. I looked noticeably chubbier. Worst of all, I felt unhappy in my body, more so than at any other point in my life. Thankfully, I soon discovered a strategy which would help me become more stable for a while. But I may not have had the urge to find it without this low point, so I’d like to use this post to highlight the darkness from which the change emerged.
No matter how often I talk about my binges, I feel like I can’t do their scale justice. I don’t remember all of the Hamburg trip or every meal I had, but I do remember my worst moments. Staying in a hotel with dad meant buffet breakfast. And buffets, at the time, meant trying absolutely everything. And by “try”, I don’t mean a small spoonful to get a moderate sample. I mean a third of a plate, because how could I sample something without having several bites?
My buffet “strategy” at the time
Round 1:
Start with at least a small piece of EVERYTHING, no matter whether I liked it or not, to get a variety of nutrition. Way too much food, but a fair start. Now, with a mental note of my likes and dislikes, I’d go for…
Round 2:
Just the things I liked, regardless of nutrition. Not just a top-off, oh no. Despite having what added up to an above-average meal for round 1, I didn’t have that much of my favourites. Magically, that made me feel like I could go for way more, so now I needed like a third or half plate of each of the good stuff.
Round 3:
Having awoken my monstrous appetite, I’d yet go for thirds – smaller portions, but still more calories. Just the cream of the crop this time – the true kings of flavour and texture.
Rounds 4+:
By this point, I’d start to feel diminishing returns: Somewhere deep down, I know I’m full, and though I could go for more, I know it won’t be as tasty as the first forty times around. After confirming the theory through practice of more food, I’d be done. But wait! I can’t just leave it there – what about dessert?? Breakfast or not, if there were sweets on offer, it would be a waste not to try them!
I could have gone straight for my kind of desserts; I was well are of what I liked: rich, decadent, gooey type sweets, like chocolate or caramel. Pastries and cakes were comparatively boring for me, but I couldn’t not at least try the pastries. They’re right there! And free! So, once again, I’d have one of each, before deciding my favourites (which I knew all along). Then it was time for round 2, the “proper” round of each of the good ones, before getting smaller and smaller extra rounds until my guilt wouldn’t let me go on. Had I not had access to food for the rest of the day, I probably wouldn’t even have felt hungry.
But access I had, so the feast continued. I don’t remember what I did for lunch, but dinner was at my aunt’s. My Filippino aunt’s (Annie). I don’t know whether you’ve been over to a Filo’s before, but if they have three guests coming over, they cook for twelve. And Annie’s cooking is delicious. So of course, I had several helpings of all the curries and fish and meats and halo halo she had to offer. The rest could have been packed up for the following days, but it’s not like I’d be there to eat it!
Even before digging in, my uncle and grandpa commented on my weight gain. Just like when my parents did before, I’m glad they did. Whenever I binged, I’d hope that, just maybe, nobody else would notice my immediate weight gain. Surely nobody looks at me in as much detail and with the same scrutiny I do. Sometimes, if the change wasn’t noticable to me, I’d use that to justify another binge, despite the fact that feeling like shit was the problem the previous day, not how I looked. But this wasn’t about the short-term weight gain – that was just the cherry on top of a longer period of unstable eating habits. A period my family most definitely noticed.
That same weekend, I went to a football game. Maybe it was after dinner, maybe it was the next day – same difference. As dad went to the pub with his mates, I went back to the hotel. I was well-fed and ready to shed. Magically, I still ended up with a mini-binge worth of sweets back at the hotel. I couldn’t help but pick up some sweets in a convenience store on the way. After all, you only get Franzbrötchen in Hamburg, and you don’t get the fancy Rittersport flavours outside of Germany. It is a holiday after all!
It was the next day, after yet another buffet binge bonanza, that I saw myself in the room’s full-body mirror. It wasn’t the first time I saw it that trip, but by then, I had the trillions of calories from the previous days making themselves noticed, along with my latest binge contributing to feeling like a fat shit, and that combination made me depressed. That was the moment I vowed to change.
To anyone who didn’t know what I usually look like, I wouldn’t have stood out as particularly fat – I was perhaps slightly chubby on top of muscle. But it was about my trajectory. Had I kept going down this path, I could have almost continuously gained weight, and very rapidly. No amount of exercise would stop my intake, and at that point even the exercise would get exhausting and unhealthy. This was the weekend where I came closest to launching into that trajectory, but also the one I decided that’s not who I wanted to be. Of course, it took a bit longer than that to actually change, but I got there eventually.
Before discovering a more sustainable strategy, I did what I usually did at the time: upon returning to uni, I ate less and had no sweets for a while. As always, it “worked” but resulted in another binge around the corner, meaning fluctuating weight and self-esteem. Thankfully, a few weeks later, a friend gave me a tip that changed my ways almost instantly. It was by no means a perfect solution, nor did I keep it up forever, but it was what I needed at the time. On the next episode of my dietary journey: A year of app-guided calorie counting.
What, if you’re comfortable sharing, was your darkest point? Do you feel like you’ve found a way out of there?
One reply on “Buffet binge bonanzas: My dietary low point”
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