…..I’d be rich. The eating switch that is.
I was a fat baby. A fat child. A fat teenager, young adult…..all the way here to middle age. Oh, there have been various stages of fatness, sometimes I am grossly fat, other times only plump. I’ve gained and lost thousands of pounds in my life.
It seems to go in 7-10 year cycles. Got (relatively) thin at 19, fat by 22. Gross again after marriage and childbirth, but svelt (sortof) for my 10th anniversary. Fat again during medical school, thin after residency….
….fat during my private practice years.
In 2003, my office staff invited me to join them in following the weight watchers point program. On it, I lost 80 pounds, and it was then that I noted the “switch.” All those years of overeating/gaining/dieting/losing…repeating the cycle boiled down to the switch. When “on”, I find that I eat unfettered by guilt or satiety, my good intentions and self loathing are of no import. There is food…..therefore I eat.
Then the switch goes to “off,” and I can eat three well balanced meals, a snack….and feel completely satisfied. Currently the switch is “off,” and I can feel (and see) the weight coming off. I have no illusions, though. I will lose some weight, keep it off for awhile, then the switch will flip….and I’ll need a new wardrobe.
I think of St. Paul. In Romans 7: 15 he states “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do”
If I could find the brain chemical, or determine the environmental trigger that flips the switch, I’d be rich. And thin.
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